Intervention of International Communism in Guatemala

INTERVENTION of

International Communism

in GUATEMALA

C.RKKNWOOD PRESS, PUBLISHERS

WKsri'ORT, c;onnec;ticu r

T

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

United States. Dept. of State.

Intervention of international comrmmism in Guatemala.

Reprint of the 195I1 ed. published "by the U. S. Govt.
Print. Off., Washington, which was issued as the Dept.
of State's Publication 5556 and also as Inter-American
series U8,

1. Communism — Guatemala. 2. Partido Guatemalteco
del Trabojo. 3. Guatemala — Polities and government--
19^5- I. Title. II. Series: United States.
Publication ; 5556. m. Series: United States. Dept.
of state. Inter-American series ; U8.

[HX128.5.U5^ 1976] 335. ^+3' 097281 76-29052

ISBN 0-8371-9100-9

DEPARTMENT OF STATE PUBLICATION 5556
Infer-American Series 48
Released August 1954

THE LIBRARf
Southwest Texas State Universits?
San Marcos, Texas 78666 |

Originally published in 1954 by the Department of State,
U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington

Reprinted in 1976 by Greenwood Press, Inc.

Library of Congress catalog card number 76-29052

ISBN 0-8371-9100-9

Printed in the United States of America

L

Contents

PART ONE

Intervention of International Communism in the
Americas

Statement by Secretary Dulles, Caracas, Venezuela,
March 8, 1954.

Declaration of Solidarity for the Preservation of the
Political Integrity of the American States Against
International Communist Intervention

Caracas, Venezuela, March 28, 1954.

The Declaration of Caracas and the Monroe Doc-
trine

News conference statement by Secretary Dulles, March
16, 1954.

Communist Influence in Guatemala

News conference statement by Secretary Dulles, May
25, 1954.

The Guatemalan Complaint Before the U. N. Secu-
rity Council

Statements by Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., U. S. Repre-
sentative to the United Nations, June 20, 22, and
25, 1954.

U. S. Senate Concurrent Resolution 91

Approved June 25, 1954.

The Guatemalan Problem Before the OAS Council . .

Statement by John C. Dreier, U, S. Representative to
the Council of the Organization of American States,
June 28, 1954.

International Communism in Guatemala

Radio and television address by Secretary Dulles, June
SO, 1954.

PART TWO

The Guatemalan Communist Party: A Basic Study. .

The Growth of International Communism in Guate-
mala

A brief chronology, Juna 1944^Jun« 8, 1964-

Fagt

8

10
12

14

24
25

30

35

89
111

The contents of PART ONE of this volume
have been previously published.

PART TWO represents a case history of a
bold attempt on the part of international
communism to get a foothold in the Western
Hemisphere by gaining control of the political
institutions of an American Republic. The sit-
uation in Guatemala has changed since this
document was prepared. Nevertheless, it is the
view of the Government of the United States
that the facts herein constitute a grim lesson to
all nations and peoples which desire to main-
tain their independence.

II

(#*♦■

PART ONE

INTERVENTION OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNISM IN THE

AMERICAS

Statement by Secretory Dulles, Caracas, Venezuela, March 8, 1954

The United States has introduced a resolution under the agenda
item "Intervention of International Communism in the American
Kepublics." Our proposal is before you.

Its preamble first recalls the prior resolutions finding international
communism to be a threat and then records our judgment that this
threat still persists.

The first operative portion declares that, if the international Com-
munist movement should come to dominate the political institutions of
any American State, that would be a threat to the sovereignty and
political independence of us all, endangering the peace of America
and calling for appropriate action.

In accordance with existing treaties, the second operative portion
calls for disclosures and exchanges of information, which would ex-
pose and weaken the Communist conspiracy.

What is international communism? In the course of the general
debate, one of the Foreign Ministers (the Minister of Guatemala)
asked, "What is international communism?" I thought that by now
every Foreign Minister of the world knew what international com-
munism is. It is disturbing if the foreign affairs of one of our
American Republics are conducted by one so innocent that he has to
ask that question.

But since the question has been asked, it shall be answered. Inter-
national communism is that far-flung clandestine political organiza-
tion which is operated by the leaders of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union. Since 1939, it has brought 15 once independent nations
into a state of abject servitude. It has a hard core of agents in prac-
tically every country of the world. The total constitutes not a theory,
not a doctrine, but an aggressive, tough, political force, backed by great
resources, and serving the most ruthless empire of modern times.

Most of the leaders of the Soviet Communist Party appear before
the eyes of the world as responsible ofiicials of the Soviet Government.
In this capacity they conduct relations with the other Governments
through the traditional institutions of diplomacy. But at the same
time they operate and control this worldwide clandestine political
organization to which I have referred.

^

Until the Second World War, Moscow's control over this organiza-
tion was exercised openly through the central headquarters of the
Communist International, the so-called "Comintern." That was a
political association to which all of the Communist parties belonged
and it had its seat in Moscow. During the war the Comintern was
officially abolished. Since that time the control over the foreign
Communist parties has been exercised by the Moscow leaders secretly
and informally, but for the most part no less effectively than before.

As proof of this fact one does not need to search for the precise
channels through which this control proceeds, although some of them
in fact are known. If one compares Soviet propaganda with the po-
litical positions taken by individual Communist officials and agents
around the world, both from the standpoint of substance and timing,
it becomes clear, beyond possibility of doubt, that there is this highly
disciplined hierarchical organization which commands the unques-
tioned obedience of its individual members.

The disciplinary requirements include a firm insistence that loyalty
to the movement, which means in effect loyalty to the leaders of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union, shall take precedence over
every other obligation including love of country, obligation to family,
and the honor of one's own personal conduct.

These conclusions are not speculation; they are established facts,
well known to all who have seriously studied the Communist
apparatus.

The fact that this organization exists does not mean that all mem-
bers of all Communist parties everywhere are conscious of its existence
and of their relationship to it. Only a small proportion of Communist
Party members are initiated into complete awareness of the nature of
the movement to which they belong and the real sources of its au-
thority. Most national Communist parties masquerade as normal
patriotic political parties, purporting to reflect indigenous political
impulses and to be led by indigenous elements.

Actually, every one of these parties represents a conspiracy within
a conspiracy ; the rank-and-file members, while serving the purpose
of duping others, are to a considerable extent duped by their own
leaders. The leaders do not reveal fully to the rank and file either
the nature of their own allegiance or the sources of their own authority
and funds.

The overall purpose for which this organization is maintained and
operated is to act as an instrument for the advancement of the world-
wide political aims of the dominant group of Moscow leaders.
__. This, then, is the answer to "What is international communism" ?

It may nest be asked whether this international Communist appara-
tus actually seeks to bring this hemisphere, or parts of it, into the
Soviet orbit. The answer must be in the affirmative.

1

4

I shall not here accuse any government or any individuals of being
either plotters or the dupes of plotters. We are not sitting here as a
court to try governments or individuals. We sit rather as legislators.
As such, we need to know what will enable us to take appropriate ac-
tion of a general character in the common interest. Therefore, I
shall confine myself to presenting well-established facts of that
character.

When the Comintern was operating openly, it trained at Moscow,
largely in the Lenin School, numerous persons from the Americas.
Some of them are still active.
International Front Organizations

There was a special Comintern headquarters, and there were secret
field offices which controlled and supported Communist activities in
Latin America. The Comintern also developed a series of interna-
tional front organizations designed to enable its agents to get popular
backing from special groups such as labor, youth, women, students,
farmers, etc. These front organizations also served as cover for the
Soviet intelligence services.

When the Soviet Communist Party went through the form of
abolishing the Comintern, these same front organizations were car-
ried on in a different form, with headquarters shifted from Moscow
usually to satellite capitals. The Communist International of Youth
emerged as the World Federation of Democratic Youth, with head-
quarters in Budapest, and as the International Students Union, with
headquarters in Prague. There is the Women's International Juridi-
cal Association. There is the World Peace Council, located in
Prague. There is the World Committee Against War and Fascism.
Most powerful of all is the World Federation of Trade Unions, seated
under Soviet auspices in Vienna. There is the All Union Society for
Cultural Relations Abroad which channels propaganda through its
local outlets, the various Soviet friendship societies.

These front organizations carry on important activities in many of
the American States. Their members in this hemisphere go back and
forth to the Soviet bloc countries, using funds which are supplied by
the Soviet Communist Party.

The basic facts I outline are well known. They could be supple-
mented by masses of detail, but that is unnecessary for our present
purposes. It is enough to know that international communism oper-
ates strongly in this hemisphere to accomplish the political purposes
of its leaders who are at the same time the leaders of the Soviet Com-
munist Party and of the Soviet Union.

International communism is not liberating but enslaving. It has
been suggested that, even though the international Communist move-
ment operates in this hemisphere, it may serve a liberating purpose,
compatible with principles of our American States. Few, I believe,

would argue for that openly. The thesis is advanced rather by
innuendo and insinuation.

Such suggestions lese all plausibility when we recall what this
Communist movement has done to the nations and the peoples it has
come to dominate. Let us think first in terms of nations.

Many of us knew at the United Nations Jan Masaryk, the son of the
great author of Czechoslovak freedom. He was a Foreign Minister
who believed, until almost the end, that the Communist movement in
his country was something different ; that it could be reconciled with
the national freedom to which his father and he were so passionately
dedicated. But in the end his broken corpse was offered to the world
as mute evidence of the fact that international communism is never
"different" and that there can be no genuine reconciliation between it
^ and national freedom.

Czechoslovakia was stripped of every vestige of sovereignty, as we
in the Americas understand that term. It was added to the list of
victims, which already in Europe included Latvia, Estonia, Lithu-
ania, Poland, East Germany, Albania, Hungary, Kumania, and Bul-
garia. These ten European nations, once proud and honorable ex-
amples of national freedom, have become Soviet serfdoms or worse.

Within all the vast area, now embracing one-third of the world's
people, where the military power of the Soviet Union is dominant, no
official can be found who would dare to stand up and openly attack the
Government of the Soviet Union. But in this hemisphere, it takes no
courage for the representative of one of the smallest American coun-
tries openly to attack the government of the most powerful.

I rejoice that that kind of freedom exists in the Americas, even if it
may be at times abused. But the essential is that there be a relation-
ship of sovereign equality. We of the United States want to keep it
that way. We seek no satellites, but only friendly equals. We never
want to see at the pan- American table those who speak as the tools of
non- American powers. We want to preserve and defend an Ameri-
can society, in which even the weak may speak boldly, because they
represent national personalities which, as long as they are free, are
equal.

It is the purpose of our resolution to assure that there will always be
in this hemisphere such national personalities and dignity.

If now we turn to see what international communism has done to
the individual human beings, we find that it has stripped them, too, of
their sense of dignity and worth. The professional propagandists
for communism talk glibly of lofty aims and high ideals. That is part
of the routine — and fraudulent — appeal of the international Commu-
nist movement. It is one of the principal means by which the dis-
satisfied are led (o follow false leaders. But once international com-
munism lias gained its end and subjected the people to the so-called

"dictatorship of the proletariat," then the welfare of the people ceases
to be a matter of practical concern.

Communism and the Worker

Communism, in its initial theoretical stage, was designated pri-
marily to serve the workers and to provide them, not with spiritual
values, for communism is atheistic, but at least with a material well-
being. It is worthwhile to observe what has actually happened to this
favored group in countries subjugated by Communist power.

In these countries the workers have become virtual slaves, and
millions of them are literally slaves. Instructive facts are to be found
in the United Nations Eeport on Forced Labor, which was presented
to the United Nations Assembly at its last session. The authors
of this report were three eminent and independent personalities from
India, Norway, and Peru. The report finds that the Soviet Union
and its satellites use forced labor on a vast scale. Prior evidence
presented to the United Nations indicates that approximately 15 mil-
lion persons habitually fill the Soviet labor camps.

The Forced Labor Report calls the Soviet method of training and
allocating manpower "A system of forced or compulsory labor." The
Soviet workers are the most underpaid, overworked persons in any
modern industrial state. They are the most managed, checked-on,
spied-on, and unrepresented workers in the world today. There is no
freedom of movement, for the Russian worker is not allowed to leave
his job and shift to another job. He is bound to his job by his labor
book. Except for the relative few who have class privileges, wages
provide only a pitiful existence. Now, 37 years after the October
revolution, unrest and discontent have so mounted in Soviet Russia
that the rulers are forced publicly to notice them and to promise
relief.

Conditions in the Soviet satellite countries are even worse than in
Russia. The captive peoples have been subjected to sharply decreased
living standards, since they lost their freedom, and to greater exploi-
tation than prevails in Russia. The workers' outbreak in East Ger-
many of last June showed in one revealing flash how desperate the
people have become. Young boys armed only with stones dared to face
up to Soviet tanks.

When I was in the East Sector of Berlin last month, the Soviet
Foreign Minister referred to that outbreak, and he said that steps
had been taken to be sure that it did not happen again. I saw those
steps. They consisted of thousands upon thousands of heavily armed
soldiers, with machineguns and tanks.

Traditions of liberty have been established in this hemisphere under
the leadership of many great patriots. They fought for individual
human rights and dignity. They lighted the guiding beacons along
freedom's road, which have burned brightly in the healthy air of

patriotic fervor. These beacons must not be stifled by the poisonous
air of despotism now being fanned toward our shores from Moscow,
Prague, and Budapest.

These places may seem far away. But let us not forget that in the
early part of the last century the first danger to the liberties and
independence which Bolivar, San Martin, and their heroic associates
had won for the new Republics stemmed precisely from the despotic
alliance forged by the Czar of Russia.

Sometimes, it seems, we recall that threat only in terms of colonial-
ism. Actually, the threat that was deemed most grave was the desire
of Czarist Russia and its allies to extend their despotic political system
to this hemisphere.

I recall that President Monroe, in his message to Congress of Decem-
ber 2, 1823, addressed himself particularly to that phase of the prob-
lem. Pie spoke of ending future colonization by any European power,
but he spoke with greater emphasis and at greater length of the danger
which would come if "the Allied Powers should extend their political
system to any portion of either continent" of this hemisphere.

What he said was being said in similar terms by other great Amer-
ican patriots and defenders of human liberty. Those sentiments have
long since ceased to be merely unilateral. They have become an
accepted principle of this hemisphere. That is why, it seems to us, we
would be false to our past unless we again proclaimed that the exten-
sion to this hemisphere of alien despotism would be a danger to us all,
whi'h we unitedly oppose.

The Price of Freedom

My Government is well aware of the fact that there are few prob-
lems more difficult, few tasks more odious, than that of effectively
exposing and thwarting the danger of international communism.

As we have pointed out, that danger cloaks itself behind fine sound-
ing words ; it uses the cover of many well-intentioned persons, and it
so weaves itself into the fabric of community life that great courage
and skill are required to sever the evil from the good. The slogan of
"nonintervention" can plausibly be invoked and twisted to give im-
munity to what is, in fact, flagrant intervention.

The fact, however, that the defense of freedom is difficult, and calls
for courage, is no adequate excuse for shutting our eyes to the fact that
freedom is in fact endangered.

Freedom is never preserved for long except by vigilance and with
dedicated effort. Those who do not have the will to defend liberty
soon lose it.

Danger to liberty constantly recurs in everchanging form. To meet
that danger requires (lexibility and imagination. Eacli of our nations
has in tlio past, had to lake some diflicult and dangerous decisions, of
one kind or another, on behalf of the independence and integrity of

this hemisphere. During the 19th century, more than one American
nation, including my own, risked the hazard of war against great
military powers, rather than permit the intrusion into this hemisphere
of the aggressive forces of European imperialism. During this 20th
century, when evil forces of militarism and fascism twice sought
world domination, the United States paid a great price in blood and
treasure which served us all. Each of our American Republics has
contributed to what has now become a glorious tradition.

Today we face a new peril that is in many respects greater than any
of the perils of the past. It takes an unaccustomed form. It is backed
by resources greater than have ever been accumulated under a single
despotic will. However, we need not fear, because we too have greater
assets. We have greater solidarity and greater trust bom out of our
past fraternal association. But just as the danger assumes an uncon-
ventional form, so our response may also need to be different in its
form.

We need not, however, solve all these matters here. What we do
need to do is to identify the peril ; to develop the will to meet it unit-
edly, if ever united action should be required ; and meanwhile to give
strong moral support to those governments which have the responsi-
bility of exposing and eradicating within their borders the danger
which is represented by alien intrigue and treachery.

Of course, words alone wilfnot suffice. But words can be meaning-
ful. They can help to forge a greater determination to assure our col-
lective independence, so that each of our nations will, in whatever
way that is truly its own, be the master of its destiny. Thus, we will
have served our common cause against its enemies.

It is in that spirit and in that hope that the United States presents
its resolution.

i

DECLARATION OF SOLIDARITY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF
THE POLITICAL INTEGRITY OF THE AMERICAN STATES
AGAINST INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST INTERVENTION

Caracas, Venezuela, March 28, 1954

Whereas: The American republics at the Ninth International Con-
ference of American States declared that international communism,
by its anti-democratic nature and its interventionist tendency, is
incompatible with the concept of American freedom, and resolved
to adopt within their respective territories the measures necessary
to eradicate and prevent subversive activities;
The Fourth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affaire
recognized that, in addition to adequate internal measures m each
state, a high degree of international cooperation is required to eradi-
cate the danger which the subversive activities of international
communism pose for the American States ; and
The aggressive character of the international communist movement
continues to constitute, in the context of world affairs, a special
and immediate threat to the national institutions and the peace and
security of the American States, and to the right of each State to
develop its cultural, political, and economic life freely and nat-
urally without intervention in its internal or external affairs by
other States.
The Tenth Inter- American Conference

extending to this hemisphere the political system of an extra-
continental power, would constitute a threat to the sovereignty and
political independence of the American States, endangering the
peace of America, and would call for a meeting of consultation to
consider the adoption of appropriate action in accordance with
existing treaties.

II

Recommends: That without prejudice to such other measures as they
may consider desirable special attention be given by each of the
American governments to the following steps for the purpose of
counteracting the subversive activities of the international com-
munist movement within their respective jurisdictions :

1. Measures to require disclosure of the identity, activities, and
sources of funds, of those who are spreading propaganda of the
international communist movement or who travel in the interests of
that movement, and of those who act as its agents or in its behalf ;
and

2. The exchange of information among governments to assist in
fulfilling the purpose of the resolutions adopted by the Inter-
American Conferences and Meetings of Ministers of Foreign Affairs
regarding international communism.

Ill

This declaration of foreign policy made by the American republics
in relation to dangers originating outside this hemisphere is de-
signed to protect and not to impair the inalienable right of each
American State freely to choose its own form of government and
economic system and to live its own social and cultural life.

Condemns: The activities of the international communist movement
as constituting intervention in American affairs ;

Expresses: The determination of the American States to take the
necessary measures to protect their political independence against
the intervention of international communism, acting m the interests
of an alien despotism;

Reiterates: The faith of the peoples of America in the effective exer-
cise of representative democracy as the best means to promote their
social and political progress; and

Declares- That the domination or control of the political institutions
of any American State by the international communist movement,

THE DECLARATION OF CARACAS AND THE MONROE DOC-
TRINE

News Conference Statement by Secretary Dulles, March 16, 1954

I returned last Sunday from Caracas after 2 weeks of attendance
at the Tenth Inter- American Conference. The Conference is still in
session. It has many important matters to deal with, particularly in
the social and economic field. Already, however, the Conference has
made history by adopting with only one negative vote a declaration
that, if the international communism movement came to dominate or
control the political institutions of any American State, that would
constitute a threat to the sovereignty and political independence of all
the American States and would endanger the peace of America.

That declaration reflects the thinking of the early part of the nine-
teenth century. At that time, Czarist Kussia was aggressive. Czar
Alexander had made a claim to sovereignty along the west coast of
this continent and had organized the so-called Holy Alliance which
was plotting to impose the despotic political system of Kussia and its
allies upon the American Eepublics, which had just won their free-
dom from Spain.

In 1823, President Monroe, in his message to Congress, made his
famous declaration. It contained two major points. The first related
to the colonial system of the allied powers of Europe and declared that
any extension of their colonial system in this hemisphere would be
dangerous to our peace and safety. The second part of the declaration
referred to the extension to this hemisphere of the political system
of despotism then represented by Czarist Russia and the Holy Alliance.
President Monroe declared that "it is impossible that the Allied
Powers should extend their political system to any portion of either
continent without endangering our peace and happiness. It is equally
impossible, therefore, that we should behold such interposition, in any
form, with indifference."

The first part of President Monroe's declaration against extending
the European colonial system in this hemisphere has long since been
accepted and made an all- American policy by concerted action of the
American States. However, the same could not be said of President
Monroe's declaration against the extension to this hemisphere of a
European despotic system. It seemed to me, as I planned for the
Caracas conference, that the threat which stems from international
communism is a repetition in this century of precisely the kind of

10

danger against which President Monroe had made his famous declara-
tion 130 years ago. It seemed of the utmost importance that, just as
part of the Monroe declaration had long since been turned from a
unilateral declaration into a multilateral declaration of the American
States, so it would be appropriate for the American States to unite
to declare the danger to them all which would come if international
communism seized control of the political institutions of any Ameri-
can State-
That matter was debated at Caracas for 2 weeks and a declaration
in the sense proposed by the United States was adopted by a vote of
17 to 1, with 2 abstentions.

I believe that this action, if it is properly backed up, can have a
profound effect in preserving this hemisphere from the evils and woes
that would befall it if any one of our American States became a Soviet
Communist puppet. That would be a disaster of incalculable pro-
portions. It would disrupt the growing unity of the American States
which is now reflected by the Charter of the Americas and by the Rio
Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance.

It was time that we should have acted as we did because international
communism is making great efforts to extend its political control to
this hemisphere. The declaration adopted at Caracas, and particu-
larly the sentiments which were expressed during the course of the
debate, show an awareness of the danger and a resolution to meet it.
It is significant of the vitality of our American system that no one
of the American Republics, even the most powerful, wanted to deal
single-handedly with the danger, but that it was brought to the Inter-
American Conference table as a matter of common concern. Further-
more, the declaration, as adopted, contained in substance the words of
President Eisenhower, expressed in his great peace address of April
16, 1953, that the declaration "is designed to protect and not to im-
pair the inalienable right of each American State freely to choose its
own form of government and economic system and to live its own
social and cultural life."

11

COMMUNIST INFLUENCE IN GUATEMALA

News Conference Statement by Secretary Dulles, May 25, 1954

The Guatemalan nation and people as a whole are not Communists.
They are predominantly patriotic people who do not want their nation
to be dominated by any foreign power. However, it must be borne
in mind that the Communists always operate in terms of small minor-
ities who gain positions of power. In Soviet Eussia itself only about
3 percent of the people are Communists.

In judging Communist influence in Guatemala three facts are
_significant :

1. Guatemala is the only American State which has not completed
ratification of the Kio Pact of the Americas.

2. Guatemala was the only one of the American States which at
the last inter- American Conference at Caracas voted against a declara-
tion that "the domination or control of the political institutions of any
American State by the international communist movement, extending
to this hemisphere the political system of an extracontinental power,
would constitute a threat to the sovereignty and political independ-
ence of the American States, endangering the peace of America". . . .

3. Guatemala is the only American nation to be the recipient of a
massive shipment of arms from behind the Iron Curtain.

It has been suggested from Guatemala that it needs more armament
for defense. Already Guatemala is the heaviest armed of all the
Central American States. Its military establishment is three to four
times the size of that of its neighbors such as Nicaragua, Honduras, or
El Salvador.

The recent shipment was effected under conditions which are far
from normal. The shipment was loaded at the Communist-adminis-
tered Port of Stettin. The ship was cleared for Dakar, Africa. The
operation was cloaked under a series of chartering arrangements so
that the real shipper was very difficult to discover. When he was
discovered he claimed that the shipment consisted of nothing but
optical glass and laboratory equipment. Wlien the ship was diverted
from its ostensible destination and arrived at Puerto Barrios, it was
landed under conditions of extraordinary secrecy and in the personal
presence of the Minister of Defense. One cannot but wonder why,
if the operation was an aboveboard and honorable one, all of its details
were so masked.

12

L;

/ By this arms shipment a government in which Communist influence
is very strong has come into a position to dominate militarily the
Central American area. Already the Guatemalan Government has
made gestures against its neighbors which they deem to be threatening

J and which have led them to appeal for aid.

— The Guatemalan Government boasts that it is not a colony of the
United States. We are proud that Guatemala can honestly say that.
The United States is not in the business of collecting colonies. The
important question is whether Guatemala is subject to Communist
colonialism, which has already subjected 800 million people to its
despotic rule. The extension of Communist colonialism to this hemi-
sphere would, in the words of the Caracas Eesolution, endanger the
peace of America.

t

807858 5-1

13

THE GUATEMALAN COMPLAINT BEFORE THE U. N. SECURITY
COUNCIL

Statements made before the Security Council by Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.,

U. S. Representative to the United Nations
STATEMENT OF JUNE 20

The United States believes in the basic proposition that any mem-
ber, large or small, has the right to an urgent meeting of the Security
Council whenever it feels itself to be in danger. This is so even when,
as is sometimes the case, the Security Council may not itself be in the
best position to deal directly with the situation.

Guatemala charges that other governments are pursuing a policy of
hostility and aggressiveness against it. The specific Guatemalan alle-
gations mvolve two of its immediate neighbors, Honduras and Nica-
ragua, who are charged with disturbing the peace in a particular
part of Central America. These charges are indeed serious and cer-
tainly warrant urgent examination.

But the question arises as to where the situation can be dealt with
most expeditiously and most effectively.

^ The situation appears to the U. S. Government to be precisely the
kind of problem which in the first instance should be dealt with on an
urgent basis by an appropriate agency of the Organization of Ameri-
can States. The very fact that the Government of Guatemala as a
member of the Inter-American System has already requested that the
Organization of American States take action strengthens this view.

It would perhaps be in order for me to inform the Council that,
while the reports that we receive on the situation in Guatemala are
incomplete and fragmentary, the information available to the United
States thus far strongly suggests that the situation does not involve
aggression but is a revolt of Guatemalans against Guatemalans. The
situation in Guatemala, out of which this problem arises, has caused
grave concern to the U. S. Government and to the other members of
the Organization of American States. Consequently, the members of
the Organization of American States have for some time been con-
ferring intensively among themselves on the Guatemalan situation
with a view to deciding upon what steps should be taken for the main-
tenance of peace and security of the continent.
No Charge Against U.S.

I am very glad that the Guatemalan representative made it crystal
clear that ho makes no charge whatever against the U.S. Government,

14

1

because it is certainly true that the United States has no connection
whatever with what is taking place.

I am constrained to note that, although he made no charges against
the United States, the Guatemalan representative did cite a number
of unfavorable comments made by others concerning Secretary Dulles,
Ambassador Peurifoy, and Ambassador John M. Cabot. In fact,
more of the time of his speech was given up in citing these statements
that others had made— newspaper articles and hearsay— than in the
actual charge that he made. Those tactics, of course, always give one
the impression that instead of being interested in getting the answer
to the question, "What is the truth?", the speaker is more interested in
getting the answer to the question, "What is the headline going to be?"
Now, I do not think it is necessary for me here in the United Nations
to make a lengthy speech about Secretary Dulles. Secretary Dulles
has worked here for years. He is very well kno\vn personally to most
of the men in this room. The merest inference that he could be actu-
ated by any consideration other than that of duty is one which cer-
tainly reflects no credit on him who utters it. To anyone who knows
President Eisenhower— and many of you know him— it must be
crystal clear that there is a man who is utterly devoted to the principles
of democracy, to the rights of man, and who abhors all forms of im-
perialism, who led a great army in World War II against Nazi
imperialism, and who has shown by every word and deed of his life
since the day when he was a small boy in Kansas that his heart is al-
ways on the side of the little man who is trying to get by in life.

The Secretary of State did nothing at Caracas which was not in
accordance with the facts. As a matter of fact, the only authorities
which the Guatemalan representative cites are the U.S. press. The
U.S. press, estimable though it is and deeply as I respect it, does not
speak for the U.S. Government, and I am sure the U.S. press will agree
with me in that respect. You can find as many different opinions in
the U.S. press as you care to look for.

Then the Guatemalan representative cites American companies,
and, of course, they do not speak with the voice of authority.

Finally, he refers to Mr. Patterson [Kichard C. Patterson, Jr., U.S.
Ambassador to Guatemala from October 1948 until March 1951].
Well, Mr. Patterson does not hold office under this administration.
He has never held office under this administration. Whatever he says
is entirely on his own authority as an individual, and just as I will not
judge the opinion of the Guatemalan Government about the United
States on the basis of what some individual Guatemalan may say, so I
will ask the Guatemalan representative not to judge the U.S. opinion
about Guatemala on the basis of what some individual citizen of the
United States may say.

If

I would like to point out that the Guatemalan representative has
never produced any names or dates or other specific indications show-
ing that the State Department has ever acted in an improper manner.

Now, this discussion began with a speech of Ambassador Castiilo-
Arriola which, as I say, was correct in tone. Then came the unspeak-
able libels against my country by the representative of the Soviet
Union, which, in the words that Sir Gladwyn Jebb used last autumn,
make me think that his reason must be swamped when he says things
hke that about the United States.

Then, as a climax, we had the crude performance in the gallery— a
sequence which I fear is not without significance. Of course, anyone
IS capable of filhng the galleries with paid demonstrators, and we
hope that the Communists who think this is such clever politics will
outgrow it after a while. It may take time.

No Satellites in OAS

The representative of the Soviet Union said that the United States
is the master of the Organization of American States. When he says
that, he is not reflecting on us. He is reflecting on himself, because it
shows that he cannot conceive of any human relationship that is not
the relationship of master and servant. He cannot conceive of a
relationship in which there .. a rule of live and let live, in which
people are equals and in which people get along by accommodation
and by respecting each other.

He can just imagine what would happen to somebody who raised his
voice against the Soviet Union in Poland, Czechoslovakia, or Estonia,
or one of those countries, and compare that with the way in which
representatives of smaller countries in the United Nations constantly
disagree with the United States— and they are welcome to do it. We
have no satellites and we do not want any; and we do not desire to
set up a monolithic structure in the free world.

Then the Soviet representative said that the United States pre-
pared this armed intervention. That is flatly untrue. I will challenge
him to prove it — and he cannot do so.

It is interesting to me, who spent 13 years of my life in the United
States Senate, to come here and find that in the person of the repre-
sentative of the Soviet Union we have such an outstanding authority
on the United States Senate. Apparently, he knows all. Though
he never has set foot inside the place, he apparently knows much more
about the United States Senate than men who have been members of it
for many years. When he infers that the Senators of the United
States allow their official actions to be determined in accordance with
their private fuiancial interests, he is making an accusation which not
only reflects no credit upon himself but which reflects a grave doubt
on the wisdom and the good intent and the sincerity of every policy
whicli his Government advocates here today.

16

(

I will call his attention to the fact that I was in the Senate at the
beginning of World War II when the Senate voted the Lend-Lease
Bill whereby the United States aided the Soviet Union in its fight to
repel Nazi imperialism. At that time we did not hear anything out of
the Soviet Union criticizing the motives of the Senators of the United
States who were then voting to help the Soviet Union.

Now, the men who are in the United States Senate today are pre-
cisely the same kind of men who voted to help the Soviet Union. If
they were good enough then to help the Soviet Union, they are good
enough now to stand up for the interests of their country,

I notice the representative of the Soviet Union is smiling, which
leads me to believe that he does not really believe the things that he
has said and that he has said them under instructions. I trust that
is the case.

Now, he has told us that he intends to veto the pending resolution.
That will be the second veto by the Soviet Union in 3 days. We had
veto No. 59 on Friday, and now we are going to have veto No. 60
on Sunday. And, vetoing what ? Vetoing a move to ask the Organiza-
tion of American States to solve this problem, to try to bind up this
wound in the world and then report back to the Security Council—
not to relieve the Security Council of responsibility. This resolution
does not do that. It just asks the Organization of American States
to see what it can do to be helpful. Here it says in paragraph 2 of
article 52, "the Members of the United Nations entering into such ar-
rangements'' — that is, regional arrangements — "or constituting such
agencies shall make every effort to achieve pacific settlement of local
disputes through such regional arrangements or by such regional
agencies before referring them to the Security Council."

Now, at the very least, that is a harmless provision. It is an in-
telligent provision. It is a constructive provision. Why does the
representative of the Soviet Union, whose country is thousands and
thousands of miles away from here, undertake to veto a move like that?
Wlaat is his interest in it? How can he possibly— how can this action
of his possibly fail to make unbiased observers throughout the world
come to the conclusion that the Soviet Union has designs on the
American Hemisphere. There is no other explanation of it. And the
recent articles in Pravda and Izvestia which have appeared in the last
2 or 3 days give color to that assertion.

I say to you, representative of the Soviet Union, stay out of this
hemisphere and don't try to start your plans and your conspiracies
over here.
STATEMENT OF JUNE 22

I note specifically the cable from Mr. Toriello does not ask for
another meeting of the Council.

17

T

As President of the Security Council I was very glad to respond to
his request for an urgent meeting of the Council last Sunday.

The Security Council, after exhaustive discussion, by a vote of
10 to 1, voted last Sunday [June 20] that the right place to go to get
peace in Guatemala is the Organization of American States, where
there is both unique knowledge and authority. The one vote against
this was that of the Soviet Union.

In the face of this action, therefore, those who continually seek to
agitate the Guatemalan question in the Security Council will in-
evitably be suspected of shadow boxing — of trying to strike attitudes
and issue statements for propaganda purposes.

I can understand that the Soviet Union, which, by its cynical abuse
of the veto, has crudely made plain its desire to make as much trouble
as possible in the Western Hemisphere, should constantly seek to
bring this matter before the Security Council.

But the Government of Guatemala should not lend itself to this
very obvious Communist plot, lest they appear to be a cat's paw of the
Soviet conspiracy to meddle in the Western Hemisphere. In fact, as
it is, many persons will wonder whether the whole imbroglio in Guate-
mala was not cooked up precisely for the purpose of making Com-
munist propaganda here in the United Nations. This I am sure Mr.
Toriello would not want.

The fact that it has become increasingly plain that the situation in
Guatemala is clearly a civil — and not an international — war, makes it
even more appropriate that the Security Council should not intervene
further.

The Security Council showed last Sunday by a vote of 10 to 1 that
it emphatically believed that the Organization of American States was
the place to try to settle the Guatemalan problem. To fly squarely in
the face of this recommendation would raise grave doubts as to the
good faith of those who make such requests.

STATEMENT OF JUNE 25

Now, Gentlemen, the Government of the United States joins its col-
leagues in the Organization of American States in opposing the adop-
tion of the provisional agenda. We have taken this position only after
the most careful consideration. We believe that there should be great
liberality with reference to the consideration of items by either the
Security Council or the General Assembly, but in the present case, we
believe that an issue was involved which is so fundamental that it
brings into question the whole system of international peace and secu-
rity which was created by the charter at San Francisco in 1945.

When the charter was being drafted, the most critical single issue
was that of the relationship of the United Nations as a universal or-
ganization to regional organizations, notnbly the already existing Or-
ganization of American States. Thoi-e wci-c n, good iriany days in

18

*

San Francisco when it seemed that the whole concept of the United
Nations might fail of realization because of the difficulty of reconcil-
ing these two concepts of universaUty and regionalism. Finally, a
solution was found in the formula embodied in articles 51 and 52 of
the charter. Article 51 recognized the inherent right of individuals to
collective self-defense, and article 52 admitted the existence of regional
arrangements for dealing with such matters related to the maintenance
of international peace and security as are appropriate for regional
action. Article 52 provided that the Security Council had the in-
herent right to investigate any dispute or situation under article 34
which might lead to international friction. While any member of
the United Nations might bring any dispute or situation to the atten-
tion of the Security Council under article 35, nevertheless members of
the United Nations who had entered into regional arrangements
should make every effort to achieve pacific settlements of local disputes
through such regional arrangements before referring them to the
Security Council. The Security Council should thus encourage the
development of pacific settlement of local disputes through regional
arrangements.

Now, Gentlemen, by that formula a balance was struck between
universality, the effectiveness of which was qualified by the veto power,
and regional arrangements. The adoption of that formula permitted
the charter of the United Nations to be adopted. Without that for-
mula there would never have been a United Nations.

If the United States Senate in 1946 had thought that the United
Nations Charter in effect abrogated our inter- American system, I say
to you as a man with 13 years' experience in the Senate, the charter
would not have received the necessary two-thirds vote. And, in my
judgment, the American people feel the same way today.

Translating a Formula Into a Reality

Now for the first time, the United Nations faces the problem of
translating that formula from one of words into one of reality. The
problem is as critical as that which faced the founders at San Fran-
cisco in 1945. Let us not delude ourselves. If it is not now possible
to make a living reality of the formula which made possible the
adoption of the charter, then the United Nations will have destroyed
itself in 1954 as it would have been destroyed still-born in 1945 had
not the present formula been devised primarily under the creative
effort of the late Senator Vandenberg and the present Secretary of
State, Mr. Dulles, working with Secretary Stettinius and other ad-
ministration leaders. It was this formula which secured bipartisan
support in the United States in 1946. And I note by a completely
bipartisan vote the Senate today declared that the international Com-
munist movement must be kept out of this hemisphere.

T9

So much for the part of the United States in what happened at San
Francisco.

The great weight of the effort at San Francisco, however, was made
by the other American Republics, as you have heard Ambassador
Gouthier and Ambassador Echeverri say before me. The repre-
sentatives of the other American Republics were determined that the
United Nations should be supplementary and not in substitution or
impairment of the tried and trusted regional relationships of their
own.

The United States, which took such an active part in drafting the
charter provisions in question, soberly believes that, if the United
Nations Security Council does not respect the right of the Organiza-
tion of American States to achieve a pacific settlement of the dispute"
between Guatemala and its neighbors, the result will be a catastrophe
of such dimensions as Mall gravely impair the future effectiveness,
both of the United Nations itself and of regional organizations such
as the Organization of American States. And that is precisely what
I believe to be the objective of the Soviet Union in this case. Other-
wise, why is he so terribly intent upon doing this ?

The present charter provisions were drafted with particular re-
gard for the Organization of American States, which constitutes the
oldest, the largest, and the most solid regional organization that the
world has ever known. The distinctive relationship of the American
States dates back to the early part of the last century. Throughout
this period of over 130 years, there has been a steady development of
ever closer relations between the 21 American Republics. They have
achieved a relationship which has preserved relative peace and se-
curity in this hemisphere and a freedom from the type of wars which
have so cruelly devastated the peoples of Europe and Asia. The
Organization of American States is an organization founded upon
the freedom-loving traditions of Bolivar, of Washington, and of
Abraham Lincoln.

The 21 American Republics have been bound together by a sense of
distinctive destiny, by a determination to prevent the extension to this
hemisphere of either the colonial domain of European powers or the
political system of European despotism. They have repeatedly
pledged themselves to settle their own disputes as between themselves
and to oppose the interposition into their midst of non-American
influences, many of which were abhorrent to the ideals which gave
birth to the American Republics and which sustained them in their
determination to find a better international relationship than has yet
been achieved at the universal level.

Evidence of Communist Intervention

There has recently been evidence that international communism, in
its lust for world dominatioii, has b'j'>n seeking to gain control of the

20

political institutions of the American States in violation of the basic
principles which have from the beginning inspired them freely to
achieve their own destiny and mission in the world.

Now it is our belief that the great bulk of the people of Guatemala
are opposed to the imposition upon them of the domination of alien
despotism and have manifested their resistance just as have many other
countries which international communism sought to make its victim.
The Government of Guatemala claims that the fighting now going
on there is the result of an aggression by Honduras and Nicaragua.
It claims that it is a victim. It asks for an investigation. It is en-
titled to have the facts brought to light. The procedures for doing
that are clearly established within the regional Organization of
American States. These states have established a permament Inter-
American Peace Committee to handle problems of this nature.
Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua all applied to that Committee
for assistance in resolving this problem. The Committee has agreed
to send a fact-finding committee to the area of controversy for that
purpose. Guatemala has attempted to interrupt this wholesome
process by first withdrawing its petition, and, second, by withholding
its consent for the fact-finding committee to proceed with its task.
Nevertheless, because the members of the Committee feel that it is
inconceivable that Guatemala will obstruct the very investigation for
which she has been clamoring for days, the Committee is firmly and
vigorously preparing to proceed to the area of controversy.

The Government of Guatemala has regularly exercised the priv-
ileges and enjoyed all the advantages of membership in the Organiza-
tion of American States, including those of attending and voting in
its meetings. It is obligated by article 52, paragraph 2 of the charter,
to "make every effort to achieve pacific settlement of local disputes
through regional arrangements." Its efforts to bypass the Organiza-
tion of American States is in substance a violation of article 52, para-
graph 2.

We hear today that Guatemala, after years of posing as a member
of that Organization, now for the first time claims that she is not
technically a member thereof. To have claimed and to have exercised
all the privileges of membership for a number of years and then to
disclaim the obligations and responsibilities is an example of duplicity
which surely the Security Council should not condone. Either Guate-
mala is a member of the Organization of American States and there-
fore bound by article 62, paragraph 2, or else it is guilty of duplicity
such that it cannot come before the Security Council with clean hands.

Now, if we adopt the agenda, we in effect give one state, in this case
(luatemala, a veto on the Organization of American States. It is not
possible to do both. You do one at the expense of the other in this
case.

21

In any event, the United States is a member of the Organization
of American States, and as such we are clearly bound by article 52,
paragraph 2 of the charter. The United States is also bound by article
20 of the charter of the Organization of American States which pro-
vides :

All International disputes that may arise between American States shall be
snbmitted to the peaceful procedures set forth in the Charter before being
referred to the Security Council of the United Nations.

Well, that has been so for a long time.

The United States does not deny the propriety of this danger to the
peace from Guatemala being brought to the attention of the Security
Council in accordance with article 35 of the charter, and that has
been done. As I said, I called the meeting the day after I received the
message. The United States is, however, both legally and as a matter
of honor bound by its undertakings contained in article 52, paragraph
2, of the charter and in article 20 of the charter of the Organization
of American States to oppose Security Council consideration of this
Guatemalan dispute upon the agenda of the Security Council until
the matter has first been dealt with by the Organization of American
States, which through its regularly constituted agencies is dealing
actively with the problem now.

The United States is in this matter moved by more than legal or
technical considerations, and I recognize that. We do not lightly
oppose consideration of any matter by the Security Council. We are,
however, convinced that a failure by the Security Council to observe
the restraints which were spelled out in the charter will be a grave
blow to the entire system of international peace and security which
the United Nations was designed to achieve.

The proposal of Guatemala, supported most actively by the Soviet
Union, which in this matter has already passed its 60th veto, is an
effort to create international anarchy rather than international order.
International communism seeks to win for itself support by constantly
talking about its love of peace and international law and order. In
fact, it is the promoter of international disorder.

Gentlemen, this organization is faced by the same challenge which
faced the founders at San Francisco in 1945. The task then was to
find the words which would constitute a formula of reconciliation
between universality and regionalism. And now the issue is whether
those words will be given reality or whether they will be ignored. If
they be ignored, the result will be to disturb the delicate but precious
balance between regional and universal organizations and to place one
against the other in a controversy which may well be fatal to them
both.

The balance struck by the charter was achieved at San Francisco
in the face of violent ojjposition of the Soviet Union at that time. It

22

sought from the beginning to secure for the Security Council, where
it had the veto power, a monopoly of authority to deal with interna-
tional disputes. Today international communism uses Guatemala as
the tool whereby it can gain for itself the privileges which it was
forced to forego at San Francisco. I say with all solemnity that, if the
Security Council is the victim of that strategy and assumes jurisdic-
tion over disputes which are the proper responsibility of regional
organizations of a solid and serious character, then the clock of peace
will have been turned back and disorder will replace order.

The Guatemalan complaint can be used, as it is being used, as a tool
to violate the basic principles of our charter. It is to prevent that
result, which would set in motion a chain of disastrous events, that
the United States feels compelled to oppose the adoption of the
provisional agenda containing the Guatemalan complaint and appeals
to the other members to join with us in avoiding a step which, under
the guise of plausibility and liberality, will, in fact, engage this
organization in a course so disorderly and so provocative of jurisdic-
tional conflict that the future of both the United Nations and of the
Organization of American States may be compromised and a grave
setback given to the developing processes of international order.

29

T

U. S. SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 91

Approved June 25, 1954

Whereas for many years it has been the joint policy of the United
States and the other States in the Western Hemisphere to act vig-
orously to prevent external interference in the affairs of the nations
of the Western Hemisphere ; and

Whereas in the recent past there has come to light strong evidence of
intervention by the international Communist movement in the State
of Guatemala, whereby government institutions have been infil-
trated by Communist agents, weapons of war have been secretly
sliipped into that country, and the pattern of Communist conquest
has become manifest ; and

Whereas on Sunday, June 20, 1954, the Soviet Government vetoed in
the United Nations Security Council a resolution to refer the matter
of the recent outbreak of hostilities in Guatemala to the Organiza-
tion of American States : Therefore be it

Resolved hy the Senate {the House of Representatives concurring)^
That it is tlie sense of Congress that the United States should re-
affirm its support of the Caracas Declaration of Solidarity of March
28, 1954, which is designed to prevent interference in Western Hemi-
sphere affairs by the international Communist movement, and take
all necessary and proper steps to support the Organization of Ameri-
can States in taking appropriate action to prevent any interference
by the international Communist movement in the affairs of the
States of the Western Hemisphere.

THE GUATEMALAN PROBLEM BEFORE THE OAS COUNCIL

Statement by John C. Drcier, U. S. Representative to the Council oF the
Organization of American States, June 28, 1954

I speak today as the representative of one of 10 American countries
who have joined in a request that a Meeting of Ministers of Foreign
Affairs be convoked to act as Organ of Consultation under articles 6
and 11 of the Inter- American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance. On
behalf of the United States I wish to support this request with all the
force and conviction that I can express, feeling profoundly as I and
my countrymen do that this is a critical hour in which a strong and
positive note of inter- American solidarity must be sounded.

The Republics of America are faced at this time with a serious
threat to their peace and independence. Throughout the world the
aggressive forces of Soviet Communist imperialism are exerting a
relentless pressure upon all free nations. Since 1939, 15 once free
nations have fallen prey to the forces directed by the Kremlin. Hun-
dreds of millions of people in Europe and Asia have been pressed into
the slavery of the Communist totalitarian state. Subversion, civil
violence, and open warfare are the proven methods of this aggressive
force in its ruthless striving for world domination.

Following World War II, in which millions of men died to free
the world from totalitarianism, the forces of Communist imperialism
took on a freshly aggressive aspect. The first objectives of this new
drive for domination were the countries of Eastern Europe and the
Balkans. Efforts to overcome Greece and Iran failed because of the
heroic resistance of peoples whose courage not only gave them strength
to defend their independence but also brought them the moral and
material support of other countries directly and through interna-
tional organizations.

Communist forces then turned their attention to Asia. Following
the fall of China came the stark aggression of the Korean war where
once more the united forces of the free world, acting through the
United Nations, stemmed the tide of Soviet Communist imperialism.

More recently, we have seen the combination of Communist sub-
version and political power, backed with weapons from the Com-
munist arsenal, strike deep into Southeast Asia and threaten to
engulf another populous area of the world as it emerges from
colonialism.

And now comes the attack on America.

24

IS

Until very recently we of the Americas, here in our continental
bastion, have felt ourselves relatively far from the field of open con-
flict. To be sure, in all our countries the international Communist
organization has for some time undertaken its insidious work of
attempting to undermine our institutions and to achieve positions of
influence in public and private organizations. But only within the
last few years has there been evidence of a real success on the part
of the international Communist organization in carrying to this
hemisphere the plagues of internal strife, and subservience to a for-
eign imperialism, which had previously been inflicted upon other
areas of the world. That success marks the problem for which the
treaty of Rio de Janeiro is now invoked as a measure of continental
defense.

Mr. Chairman, this is not the time and place in which to enter into
a discussion of the substance of the problem which will be placed
before the Organ of Consultation when it meets. At this time it is
the function of the Council merely to consider the validity of the
request that the Organ of Consultation be convoked.

In support of the request for a meeting, I should like to cite briefly
the following compelling arguments.

Anti-Communist Declarations

First, the American Republics have several times during recent
years clearly and unequivocally stated their opposition to the objec-
tives and methods of the international Communist movement which,
by its very nature, is incompatible with the high principles that govern
the international relations of the American States. This viewpoint
was clearly enunciated at the Ninth Inter-American Conference,
which in Resolution 32 declared that by its antidemocratic nature and
its interventionist tendency the political activity of international com-
munism was incompatible with the concept of American freedom.
This thought was echoed at the Fourth Meeting of Foreign Ministers
which, furthermore, pointed out that the subversive action of inter-
national communism recognized no frontiers and called for a high de-
gree of international cooperation among the American Republics
against the danger which such actions represented.

Only a few months ago at Caracas the American States expressed
their determination to take the necessary measures to protect their
political independence against the intervention of international com-
munism, and declared that the domination or control of the political
institutions of any American State by the international Communist
movement would constitute a threat to the sovereignty and political
independence of the American States, endangering the peace of
America.

26

There is no doubt, Mr. Chairman, that it is the declared policy of
the American States that the establishment of a government domi-
nated by the international Communist movement in America would
constitute a grave danger to all our American Republics and that
steps must be taken to prevent any such eventuality.
Communist Penetration in Guatemala

Second, I should like to affirm the fact that there is already abun-
dant evidence that the international Communist movement has
achieved an extensive penetration of the political institutions of one
American State, namely the Republic of Guatemala, and now seeks
to exploit that country for its own ends. This assertion, which my
Government is prepared to support with convincing detail at the right
time, is clearly warranted by the open opposition of the Guatemalan
Government to any form of inter- American action that might check
or restrain the progress of the international Commimist movement in
this continent; by the open association of that Government with the
policies and objectives of the Soviet Union in international affairs;
by the evidences of close collaboration of the authorities in Guatemala
and authorities in Soviet-dominated states of Europe for the purpose
of obtaining under secret and illegal arrangements the large shipment
of arms which arrived on board the M/'S Alfhem on May 15, 1954 ; by
the efforts of Guatemala in the United Nations Security Council, in
collaboration with the Soviet Union, to prevent the Organization of
American States, the appropriate regional organization, from dealing
with her recent allegations of aggression, and finally by the vigorous
and sustained propaganda campaign of the Soviet press and radio,
echoed by the international Communist propaganda machine through-
out the world in support of Guatemalan action in the present crisis.

The recent outbreak of violence in Guatemala adds a further sense
of urgency to the matter. We well know from experience in other
areas into which the international Communist movement has pene-
trated the tragic proportions to which this inevitable violent conflict
may ultimately extend.

The above facts, Mr. Chairman, I submit, are more than enough to
demonstrate the need for a prompt meeting of the Organ of Consulta-
tion as has been proposed in the note which was read at this meeting
today.

Within the last 24 hours it appears that there has been a change in
the Government of Guatemala. It is not possible, however, in the
opinion of my Government, to arrive at any considered judgment of
how this change may affect the problem with which we are concerned.
Under the circumstances, it would appear to be essential that we do not
relax our efforts at this moment, but proceed with our plans in order
to be ready for any eventuality. At the same time, we should of course

27

all watch developments in Guatemala carefully and be prepared sub-
sequently to take whatever steps may prove necessary in the light of
future events.

I should like to emphasize the fact that the object of our concern,
and the force against which we must take defensive measures, is an
alien, non- American force. It is the international Communist organ-
ization controlled in the Kremlin which has created the present dan-
ger. That it is rapidly making a victim of one American State in-
creases our concern for that country and our determination to unite
in a defense of all 21 of our American nations. We are conhdent
that the international Communist movement holds no real appeal for
the peoples of America and can only subdue them if allowed to pur-
sue its violent and deceitful methods unchecked. Having read the
tragic history of other nations seduced by Communist promises into a
slavery from which they later could not escape, we wish to leave no
stone unturned, no effort unexerted, to prevent the complete sub-
ordination of one of our member states to Soviet Communist im-
perialism. For when one state has fallen, history shows that another
will soon come under attack.

Now, Mr. Chairman, in the Americas we have established ways for
dealing with these problems that affect the common safety. We are
pledged to maintain continental peace and security through our
solidarity expressed in consultation and joint effort. In the Inter-
American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance we have the vehicle through
which we can merge our individual efforts in order to take the meas-
ures necessary for the maintenance of continental peace and security.
The meeting of the Organ of Consultation which we request here today
is in f ulhllment of the principles and procedures which the American
Republics have laid down for dealing with threats to their independ-
ence, sovereignty, and peace. If that system of international rela-
tions of which the peoples of this hemisphere are so rightfully proud
is to endure, it must resolutely meet the challenge which Soviet Com-
munist imiierialism has now thrown down to it.

If we take a valiant course and courageously face the danger which
menaces us we will again prove, as America has proved in the past,
the power of our united will. That, I am sure, we shall do because
of what is at stake. There hang in the balance not only the security
of this continent but the continued vitality and existence of the Or-
ganization of American States and the high principles upon which it is
founded. In our decisions at this hour we may well profoundly affect
the future of our American way of life.

Mr. Chairman, I urge that this Council promptly approve the pro-
posal that the Organ of Consultation be invoked ; that the date be set
as of July 7 next; and that the decision be taken here and now so that

28

r

the entire world may be given evidence of our determination to act
effectively in the present crisis.^

* The Council voted on June 28 to convoke a Meeting of Ministers of Foreign
Affairs at Eio de Janeiro on July 7. On July 2, following the cease-fire la
Guatemala on June 29 and the reaching of a settlement on July 1, the Council
decided to postpone the Meeting of Foreign Ministers.

1

807858 -04 S

29

INTERNATIONAL COMMUNISM IN GUATEMALA

Radio and Television Address by Secretary Dulles, June 30, 1954

Tonight I should like to talk with you about Guatemala. It is the
scene of dramatic events. They expose the evil purpose of the Kremlin
to destroy the inter- American system, and they test the ability of the
American States to maintain the peaceful integrity of this hemisphere.

For several years international communism has been probing here
and there for nesting places in the Americas. It finally chose Guate-
mala as a spot wliich it could turn into an official base from which to
breed subversion which would extend to other American Republics.

This intrusion of Soviet despotism was, of course, a direct challenge
to our Monroe Doctrine, the first and most fundamental of our foreign
policies.

It is interesting to recall that the menace which brought that doc-
trine into being was itself a menace born in Russia. It was the Russian
Czar Alexander and his despotic allies in Europe who, early in the
last century, sought control of South America and the western part of
North America. In 1823 President Monroe confronted this challenge
with his declaration that the European despots could not "extend their
political system to any portion of either continent without endanger-
ing our peace and happiness. We would not," he said, "behold such
interposition in any form with indifference."

These sentiments were shared by the other American Republics,
and they were molded into a foreign policy of us all. For 131 years
that policy has well served the peace and security of this hemisphere.
It serves us well today.

In Guatemala, international communism had an initial success. It
began 10 years ago, when a revolution occurred in Guatemala. The
revolution was not without justification. But the Communists seized
on it, not as an opportunity for real reform, but as a chance to gain
political power.

Communist agitators devoted themselves to infiltrating the public
and private organizations of Guatemala. They sent recruits to Russia
and other Communist countries for revolutionary training and indoc-
trination in such institutions as the Lenin School at Moscow. Operat-
ing in the guise of "reformers" they organized the worlcers and peas-
ants under Communist leadership. Having gained control of what
they call "mass organizations," they moved on to take over the oflicial

30

press and radio of the Guatemalan Government. They dominated the
social security organization and ran the agrarian reform program.
Through the technique of the "popular front" they dictated to the
Congress and the President.

The judiciary made one valiant attempt to protect its integrity and
independence. But the Commimists, using their control of the legis-
lative body, caused the Supreme Court to be dissolved when it refused
to give approval to a Communist-contrived law. Arbenz, who until
this week was President of Guatemala, was openly manipulated by the
leaders of communism.

Guatemala is a small country. But its power, standing alone, is not
a measure of the threat. The master plan of international commu-
nism is to gain a solid political base in this hemisphere, a base that can
be used to extend Communist penetration to the other peoples of the
other American Governments. It was not the power of the Arbenz
government that concerned us but the power behind it.

If world communism captures any American State, however small,
a new and perilous front is established which will increase the danger
to the entire free world and require even greater sacrifices from the
American people.

The Declaration at Caracas

This situation in Guatemala had become so dangerous that the
American States could not ignore it. At Caracas last March the Amer-
ican States held their Tenth Inter- American Conference. They then
adopted a momentous statement. They declared that "the domina-
tion or control of the political institutions of any American State by
the international Communist movement . . . would constitute a
threat to the sovereignty and political independence of the American
States, endangering the peace of America."

There was only one American State that voted against this declara-
tion. That State was Guatemala.

This Caracas declaration precipitated a dramatic chain of events.
From their European base the Communist leaders moved rapidly to
build up the mihtary power of their agents in Guatemala. In May a
large shipment of arms moved from behind the Iron Curtain into
(juatemala. The shipment was sought to be secreted by false mani-
fests and false clearances. Its ostensible destination was changed
three times while en route.

At the same time, the agents of international communism in Guate-
mala intensified efforts to penetrate and subvert the neighboring Cen-
tral American States. They attempted political assassinations and
political strikes. They used consular agents for political warfare.

Many Guatemalan people protested against their being used by
Communist dictatorship to serve the Communists' lust for power.
The response was mass arrests, the suppression of constitutional guar-

31

anties, the killing of opposition leaders, and other brutal tactics
normally employed by communism to secure the consolidation of its
power.

In the face of these events and in accordance with the spirit of the
Caracas declaration, the nations of this hemisphere laid further plans
to grapple with the danger. The Arbenz government responded with
an effort to disrupt the inter- American system. Because it enjoyed the
full support of Soviet Kussia, which is on the Security Council, it
tried to bring the matter before the Security Council. It did so with-
out first referring the matter to the American regional organization
as is called for both by the United Nations Charter itself and by the
treaty creating the American organization.

The Foreign Minister of Guatemala openly connived in this matter
with the Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union. The two were in
open correspondence and ill-concealed privity. The Security Council
at first voted overwhelmingly to refer the Guatemala matter to the
Organization of American States. The vote was 10 to 1. But that
one negative vote was a Soviet veto.

Then the Guatemalan Government, with Soviet backing, redoubled
its efforts to supplant the American States system by Security Council
jurisdiction.

However, last Friday, the United Nations Security Council decided
not to take up the Guatemalan matter but to leave it in the first in-
stance to the American States themselves. That was a triumph for
the system of balance between regional organization and world organ-
ization, which the American States had fought for when the charter
was drawn up at San Francisco.

The American States then moved promptly to deal with the situa-
tion. Their peace commission left yesterday for Guatemala. Earlier
the Organization of American States had voted overwhelmingly to
call a meeting of their Foreign Ministers to consider the penetration
of international communism in Guatemala and the measures required
to eliminate it. Never before has there been so clear a call uttered
with such a sense of urgency and strong resolve.

Altempt To Obscure Issue

Throughout the period I have outlined, the Guatemalan Govern-
ment and Communist agents throughout the world have persistently
attempted to obscure the real issue— that of Communist imperial-
ism—by claiming that the United States is only interested in pro-
tecting American business. We regret that there have been disputes
between the Guatemalan Government and the United Fruit Company.
We have urged repeatedly that these disputes be submitted for settle-
ment to an international tribunal or to international arbitration. That
is the way to dispose of problems of this sort. But this issue is
relatively unimportant. All who know the temper of the U. S. people

32

and Government must realize that our overriding concern is that
which, with others, we recorded at Caracas, namely the endanger-
ing by international communism of the peace and security of this
hemisphere.

The people of Guatemala have not been heard from. Despite the
armaments piled up by the Arbenz government, it was unable to enlist
the spiritual cooperation of the people.

Led by Col, Castillo Armas, patriots arose in Guatemala to chal-
lenge the Communist leadership— and to change it. Thus, the situa-
tion is being cured by the Guatemalans themselves.

Last Sunday, President Arbenz of Guatemala resigned and seeks
asylum. Others are following his example.

Tonight, just as I speak, Col. Castillo Armas is in conference in
El Salvador with Colonel Monzon, the head of tLe Council which
has taken over the power in Guatemala City. It was this power that
the just wrath of the Guatemalan people wrested from President
Arbenz, who then took flight.

Now the future of Guatemala lies at the disposal of the Guatemalan
people themselves. It lies also at the disposal of leaders loyal to Guate-
mala who have not treasonably become the agents of an alien despotism
which sought to use Guatemala for its own evil ends.

The events of recent months and days add a new and glorious chap-
ter to the already great tradition of the American States.

Each one of the American States has cause for profound gratitude.
We can all be grateful that we showed at Caracas an impressive soli-
darity in support of our American institutions. I may add that we are
prepared to do so again at the conference called for Rio. Advance
knowledge of that solidarity undoubtedly shook the Guatemalan
Government.

We can be grateful that the Organization of American States showed
that it could act quickly and vigorously in aid of peace. There was
proof that our American organization is not just a paper organization,
but that it has vigor and vitality to act.

We can be grateful to the United Nations Security Council, which
recognized the right of regional organizations in the first instance
to order their own affairs. Otherwise the Soviet Russians would have
started a controversy which would have set regionalism against uni-
versality and gravely wounded both.

Above all, we can be grateful that there were loyal citizens of
Guatemala who, in the face of terrorism and violence and against
what seemed insuperable odds, had the courage and the will to elimi-
nate the traitorous tools of foreign despots.

The need for vigilance is not past. Communism is still a menace
everywhere. But the people of the United States and of the other
American Republics can feel tonight that at least one grave danger

33

has been averted. Also an example is set which promises increased
security for the future. The ambitious and unscrupulous will be less
prone to feel that communism is the wave of their future.

In conclusion, let me assure the people of Guatemala. As peace and
freedom are restored to that sister Republic, the Government of the
United States will continue to support the just aspirations of the
Guatemalan people. A prosperous and progressive Guatemala is
vital to a healthy hemisphere. The United States pledges itself not
merely to i)olitical opposition to communism but to help to alleviate
conditions in Guatemala and elsewhere which i^Jght afford com-
munism an opportunity to spread its tentacles throughout the hemi-
sphere. Thus we shall seek in positive ways to make our Americas an
example which will inspire men everywhere.

34

PART TWO

THE GUATEMALAN COMMUNIST PARTY

(Partido Guatemaltcco del trabajo)

A BASIC STUDY

(Revision May 1954)

The situation in Guatemala has changed since the folhwing
documents were prepared. Neverfhe/ess, it is the view of the
Government of the United States that the free nations and peoples
of the world will find these documents valuable and important as
a case history of a bold attempt on the pari of m/ernafiono/ com-
munism fo get a foothold in the Western Hemisphere by gaining
control of the political institutions of an American Republic.

35

SUMMARY

The Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo (The Guatemalan Labor
Party — PGT), a Communist party modeled on and guided by the
Soviet Communist Party, is the most influential single political or-
ganization in present-day Guatemala. Its influence on Guatemalan
political life is probably greater than that exercised in any other
Latin American country by any local Communist party. The char-
acteristics of its growth and successes provide perhaps the most re-
vealing insight into the adaptation of international Communist strat-
egy to the Latin American environment.

The PGT is a party of young ladino^ "intellectuals," of the lower
middle class. Its founders and present leaders are young school-
teachers, ex-university students, journalists, white collar workers and
former employees of United States and foreign enterprises in Guate-
mala. This was the sector of society most frustrated under the archaic
social structure of Guatemala, a small Central American State of
some 3,000,000 inhabitants which until after World War II remained
a backward dictator-ridden agricultural country where 2 percent of
the landholdings covered YO percent of the arable land, and over half
the population consisted of illiterate Indians living apart from the
main currents of twentieth century life.

In the intellectually fermenting years of the 1930's and of World
War II, many of these intellectuals became attracted to nationalism
and Marxism as offering a way out for Guatemala.

The mold of the Guatemalan Communist movement was the 1944
revolution and the 1945-51 administration of President Juan Jose
Arevalo, a self -proclaimed "spiritual socialist" schoolteacher. The
revolution, which overthrew the last vestiges of the 13-year regime
of Gen. Jorge ITbico, originally had the support of all of the middle
classes but its leading element was the lower middle class intellectual
gi-onp whicli sought to apply their nationalist and Marxist theories
to bring about Guatemala's social transformation. Conscious of in-
experience, they relied heavily for direction in labor and political
organization on foreigners and Guatemalan exiles who had been in-
volved in Connnunist activities in Latin America and who flocked to
Guatemala after the 1944 revolution, largely unnoticed by the out-

'A Jailiix) in (Jiialciiiiilii !•< n porson who hn.s ndoiilcd Kuniiwiiii cultural
sliiiKlnnlH ((>. «.. Wcslcni ilrcss) luul may be racially a pure Indiiin as well as a
pcrsiin of irii\('<l 1)I<kj(1.

36

side world. These Communist personalities, including such figures
as Alfonso Solorzano, a Guatemalan labor lawyer closely associated
with Vicente Lombardo Toledano in Mexico, and Miguel Marmol,
a Salvadoran labor organizer, educated a younger generation of native
Guatemalan "intellectuals" in Communist doctrine by such devices as
establishing an indoctrination school in the new National Labor Fed-
eration, disseminating Communist propaganda in the administration's
"revolutionary" political parties and establishing Marxist "study
groups."

Guatemala's postwar Communist party crystallized as a clandestine
organization hidden within the Guatemalan "revolutionary" parties
and labor unions supporting the Arevalo administration. According
to its present leaders, it was first successfully founded on September
28, 1947, under the name of the Vanguardia Democrdtica as the pre-
cursor of the Guatemalan Communist Party which held its first con-
gress 2 years later. Its leader from 1948 onward was Jose Manuel
Fortuny, then a 32-year-old ex-law student, former radio newscaster,
and ex-employee of the British Legation and of an American com-
pany. Sterling Products, Inc. At the time, he was ostensibly an officer
of the Partido Accion Revolncionaria (PAR), a leading- administra-
tion party. Other probable members of the first clandestine Com-
munist organization were also members of the PAR, the other admin-
istration parties, and the labor unions. On September 28, 1949, a
day from which the present Communist Party dates its anniversaries,
this secret Communist group held its First Party Congress and
adopted the name of Partido Comunvita de Guatemala (PCG) . But
it was not until May 1950, in the last year of the Arevalo administra-
tion, that Fortuny and his group withdrew from the PAR. The fol-
lowing month they founded a newspaper, Octubre^ as the frank pre-
cursor of an open Communist party, and at the same time Victor
Manuel Gutierrez, a 29-year-old schoolteacher turned labor leader,
founded a Communist-line party under the title of the Partido Revo-
lucionario Ohrero de Guatemala (The Revolutionary Workers Party
of Guatemala— PROG) .

When Col. Jacobo Arbenz, a radical leftist-nationalist army officer,
assumed the Presidency on March 15, 1951, the PCG began to make
rapid strides toward becoming an open party. In April Fortuny
began publicly signing documents as "Secretary General of the
Partido Commiista de Guatemala.'''' In June, on the first anniversary
of the newspaper Octulre, the PCG held a public ceremony attended
by several high government figures and proclaimed its intention to
become a legally registered party. In October, Guatemala's labor
unions were consolidated into the Confederacion General de Traba-
^adores de Guatemala (CGTG) with Gutierrez, by that time an
avowed Communist, as its Secretary General. In January 1952, after

37

a trip to Moscow, Gutierrez dissolved his PROG and joined the PCG
which shortly thereafter achieved recognition in the Cominform
Journal published in Bucharest. In October, the party was included
with the other administration parties in the "Democratic Electoral
Front" for the impending congressional elections. In December, the
party held its Second Party Congress, changed its name to the Partido
Guatemalteco del Trabajo (PGT), and was shortly thereafter entered
on the Civil Registry as a legally constituted political party.

The PGT, as it thus emerged, is a Communist party modeled on the
Soviet Communist Party of the Stalinist era. Its statutes concentrate
power in the hands of the Secretary General and the Political Com-
mittee whose dictates are binding on subordinate regional party or-
ganizations and cells (Basic Organizations) which are scattered
through most of Guatemala with the heaviest concentration in he
capital.

Statistics on party membership have never been made public, but the
best evidence in the spring of 1954 indicates that 3,000 would be a
minimum and 4,000 a likely figure. In addition to registered PGT
members, however, there is an indeterminate number of influential
intellectual Communists who have apparently not joined Fortuny's
PGT and sometimes appear to be quarreling with it on organizational
and tactical grounds though not on ultimate objectives.

The PGT leadership, headed by Fortuny as party Secretary Gen-
eral, consists of characteristically young ladinos of the lower middle
class. The known ages of the 11-man Political Committee range
from Fortuny's 37 to 24, with the exception of one member who is
47. Seven of the 11 were university students or schoolteachers
(some with sidelines in journalism or oflEice work) before entering
politics while the remaining four were skilled workers including a
printer, a carpenter, and a tailor. There are no pure Indians and none
who have been previously employed in industry or transportation.

The party leadership is closely tied to Moscow. Fortuny and at
least 5 others of the 11 on the Political Committee have visited Moscow
and the key personnel of the Communist-controlled labor and
"mass organizations" have also been there. There is a constant flow
of propaganda material and instructions from Moscow and from the
Soviet-controlled international labor and "mass" organizations to
Guatemala.

The PGT publicly recognizes its debt to what it terms the "exam-
ple" of the Soviet Communist Party and its aims and tactics must be
viewed in the framework of the orthodox Communist thesis of the
"inevitable victory" of communism throughout the world rather than
on the local plane of gaining control of the Guatemalan Government
as quickly as possible. In international affairs, the party has empha-
sized as its first task the "Peace" campaign which is defined as prevent-

38

ing the harnessing of Guatemala to the "war chariot of imperialism" —
i. e. preventing Guatemala from taking its role in the defense of the
Western democratic community grouped around the United States.
As the corollary in domestic Guatemalan politics the PGT has an-
nounced as its first task the implementation of Guatemala's 1952
Agrariaii Reform Law which is designed to transfer much of the coun-
try's potential arable land to new small farmers, and as its second the
heightening of the struggle against United States "monopolistic" com-
panies operating in Guatemala. These domestic programs tend
toward the breakdown of the established order and are thus simul-
taneously adapted to the immediate objective of weakening Guate-
mala's position in the Western community and the ultimate objective
of preparing the ground for the Communists' coming to power.

The PGT leadership attempts to achieve its objectives largely
through indirect influence and control over government agencies,
political and labor organizations, and Communist-front youth, stu-
dents', and women's pressure groups. In the government, as illustrated
b}^ its 1951-54 growth, the party's chief asset is the sympathy of Presi-
dent Arbenz, with whose approval key government posts are filled
with party workers and sympathizers. A key instrument is the "Na-
tional Democratic Front," the formal alliance of the political parties
and labor organizations supporting Arbenz which is dominated by the
Communists and has all but replaced the Cabinet as a policy making
agency. The National Agrarian Department is the stronghold of
avowed PGT members; the government educational and propaganda
systems have been infiltrated with numbers of Communists; and the
Guatemalan Institute of Social Security with its large cash income
is dominated by Solorzano and his group.

The PGT's ability to influence the government is greatly enhanced
by its control and influence over organized Guatemalan labor which
takes in well over 100,000 workers as compared to a total vote in the
1950 presidential elections of 416,000. In the CGTG, the Secretary
General is Gutierrez, head of the PGT Central Committee's Labor
Union Comnaission, and most of the officers in key positions on the
Executive Committee are PGT members and the party's control of
the organization is effective. To a somewhat lesser extent, the PGT
exerts iniluence over the Confederacion Naoional Campesina de Guate-
mala (CNCG), the national federation of small farmers, tenants, and
those organized farm laborers not incorporated in the CGTG. Its
principal leaders have been associated with such Communist causes as
the "Peace" movement and its program is closely in line with those of
the PGT.

The principal "mass" organizations which support the party's
efforts are the National Peace Committee, whose Secretary General is
Mario Silva Jonama, Secretary of the PGT and head of its Edu-

39

cation Commission ; the AUanza de la Juventud Democrdtica de Guate-
mala (AJDG), the youth organization whose Secretary General is
Edelberto Torres Rivas, a 1953 visitor to Moscow, and one of whose
most influential leaders is Huberto Alvarado, member of the PGT
Central Committee and head of its Youth Commission; and the
AUanza Femenina Guatemalteca (AFG), the women's organization
whose Secretary General is Dora Franco y Franco, a Communist
and one of whose founding members was Sra. de Arbenz. These
organizations with the aid of the administration parties and the
labor unions have recently set themselves a goal of 125,000 signatures
on a "Peace" petition, thus giving an indication of their ability to sim-
ulate "mass support" for Communistic causes.

The PGT has thus become in 1954 the most influential single organi-
zation in Guatemalan political life and has established its dominion
over the key institutions in Guatemalan political life, with the ex-
ception of the armed forces, which, however, have not opposed com-
munism. The momentum it has achieved indicates further successes
unless there is a change in the world situation or a successful but un-
foreseeable revolt by the Guatemalan Army or some other group. The
party still has a few weaknesses : It still relies to a great extent on the
good will of the Guatemalan President and his replacement by one
less sympathetic to communism would be a serious blow; it is still
faced to some extent with the danger that the Guatemalan revolution
will turn into opportunist un-Communist channels since the indoctri-
nation of most of the current sympathizers outside of the party is only
superficial ; and in the last analysis it is dependent on the international
Communist movement for guidance and cohesion and probably could
not long survive a major Soviet setback. However, the PGT has
the salient advantage that it alone has the political initiative with the
administration parties tending increasingly to follow in its ideologi-
cal wake while the opposition has for the past 18 months increasingly
become sterile and ineffectual. Moreover, the path of agrarian re-
form and extreme nationalism on which the Arbenz administration
has hurried has been directed at breaking down the existing order with-
out an immediate substitute, a situation which cannot but enhance the
Communist position.

40

Section I

THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF
GUATEMALAN COMMUNISM

A. THE "INTELLECTUAL" STRATUM AS THE INCUBATOR OF THE
COMMUNIST MOVEMENT

1. The Guatemalan Environment: The post World War II Commu-
nist movement in Guatemala crystallized in one small segment of the
social organism, the lower middle class ladino "intellectual" group of
schoolteachers, poor students, journalists and the like, and this did
much to shape its future growth. The appeal of communism to this
group may be traced to its frustration at the failure of the Guatemalan
community to make substantial progress for at least two generations
prior to World War II in adjusting its political, social, and economic
structure in harmony with the ideals of the modern world.

Guatemala remained until after World War II essentially a back-
ward coffee-growing agricultural country in which a few landlords
controlled large groups of illiterate Indian laborers. The 1,500,000
Indians who make up half of the country's population,^ according to
recent anthropological surveys, have continued to live separated from
the main currents of modern life, entrenched in ancient customs trace-
able to the Maya era. The country's population (about 2,800,000) and
its area (about 42,000 square miles) are both roughly comparable to
those of the State of Tennessee, but in 1948 the per capita share of
the gross national product in Guatemala was less than one-tenth that
in the United States. Illiteracy, by Guatemalan statistical standards,
still stands at about 70 percent and probably less than 5 percent of the
adult male population has an education comparable to a U. S. high
school education. The bases of the society, in short, changed very little
in the 4 centuries since the Spanish Conquest in 1529 despite some
abortive efforts at modernization in the late nineteenth and first part
of the twentieth centuries.

Conditions in Guatemala, furthermore, were materially different
than those which led to the growth of Communist parties in Western
Europe. The Guatemalan society, despite its social backwardness,

' The 1950 Guatemalan census gives 54 percent as the percentage of Indians in
the country, based on cultural rather than racial characteristics. Anthropolo-
t;ists generally agree that the percentage of pure or nearly pure Indians is higher.
The remainder of the; population is considered in the census as ladinoH, that is
persons of European culture, most but not all of whom are of mixed Spanish and
Indian blood.

41

liad no true tradition of social revolution, although like other Latin
American countries it had its share of "revolutions" which were seldom
more than military coups transferring power from one clique to an-
other. The landowning classes and the bulk of the middle classes
were unresponsive to the broad appeal of social change and resistant
to the narrower attraction of communism, and there was no industrial
proletariat to speak of. There was no corps of experienced, Moscow-
trained Communists to take charge of developments nor an under-
ground party. The Marxist-oriented among the lower middle class,
thus, represented virtually the only element in the social environment
favorable for the cultivation of a Communist growth.

2. Attempts at Social Transformations {1870-1932) : In the last
two generations before World War II there were several unsuccessful
efforts to overcome the archaic structure of Guatemalan society. The
first of significance was made by Gen. Justo Rufino Barrios, dominant
figure of Guatemalan politics from 1871 to 1885 and President for the
last 11 of those years. This was a time when Guatemala was be-
ginning to feel the impact of the ideas of the liberal revolutions and
movements that had swept across the Western World in the previous
half century with the industrial revolution and when the feudal
society established with the Spanish Conquest was weakened. Bar-
rios, a dictator, attempted a start at bringing Guatemala into line with
the thought of his day by fostering an embryonic state school system,
severely restricting the temporal power of the church, establishing
a national military academy, improving communications, and other
reforms.

Despite his efforts, Barrios did not succeed in overcoming the inertia
of society. In his effort to establish a businesslike agricultural
structure he expropriated communal lands of the Indians, pieced
together large plantations, introduced the commercial growth of coffee,
and encouraged immigration to develop the new economy. The prob-
ably unforeseen result was that the Indian further lost his independ-
ence and became to a large extent the victim of "debt-slavery." The
decaying landowner-Indian relationship of the Spanish heritage was
thus revived and perpetuated in another form.

Barrios also established the first of a long series of "Liberal'* au-
thoritarian regimes which were to last through the era of Gen.
Jorge Ubico (1932-44). Ironically, the professed admiration of
Barrios and some of his "Liberal" successor for U. S. and Western
European democracy (July 4 and July 14 have since been maintained
as Guatemalan national holidays) was later to prove a factor in turn-
ing the intellectuals opposing the "Liberal" dictatorships away from
Western democracy.

After Barrios' era, an indirect but equally unsuccessful challenge
to the existing structure slowly developed in the form of a small

42

middle class. Without altering its basic internal structure, Guatemala
assimilated in the late nineteenth and first part of the twentieth
centuries some of the technological advances of the outer world. For-
eign capital started work on, and a U. S. company completed and still
owns, the International Railways of Central America (IRCA). The
United Fruit Company began what was to become the largest pro-
ductive enterprise in the country. Commercial products of expanding
U. S. and European industries entered the Guatemalan market in
increasing quantities, demands were created for modern medicine, and
eventually the introduction of automobiles and airplanes began a
transformation of this small mountainous country's communications.

The middle class which evolved to furnish the merchants, profes-
sional men, educators, and technicians to service these assimilations
had the most contacts with the outside world and became the social
stratum most conscious of Guatemala's social backwardness. How-
ever, this class eventually divided into one segment which was drawn
to the idea of progress by evolutionary means and another segment
drawn to reform by revolutionary means. The majority of the middle
class obtained in the years 1871-1944 a sufficient stake in the economy
to be content to hope for modernization by evolutionary means. The
minority, made up of those "intellectual" elements such as school-
teachers, whose resentment of Guatemala's backwardness was sharp-
ened by lack of ties to the existing structure, became something of an
insoluble lump in the Guatemalan social organism. This was not
perhaps because of any conscious desire for separation on the part of
the "intellectuals" but more probably because the archaic social struc-
ture would not provide the necessary solvent. Frustrated in their
desire to provide ideological orientation to an evolutionary society,
they lived traditionless on the periphery of the national life, often
with makeshift personal lives and prey to the facile "isms" which
seemed to provide a formula for quick solution to the problems they
perceived.

3. The Intellectuals 1932-U ; During the 1930's and World War II,
when liberal ideas of social experimentation were waxing in the in-
dustrialized countries and nationalism was sweeping the imderdevel-
oped areas, Guatemala was living under the authoritarian regime of
President Ubico, and the Guatemalan lower middle class "intellec-
tuals" who were to play a leading part in post- World War II political
developments were bitterly opposed to the regime and disposed to be
drawn to these "isms." Nationalism paradoxically provided much
of the fertile soil from which international Communist ideology was
to grow in Guatemala. The eventual contradictions between these
two "isms" remained imperceptible to most of Guatemala's radical
intellect»ials, for nationalism with its overtones of equality and sov-
ereignty of joeoples provided a ready means to blame Guatemala's

43

backwardness on foreign "imperialist" exploitation while communism
provided a dialectic explanation of "imperialism" and a concrete cause
dedicated to overcoming it.

The thinking of Guatemala's intellectuals during the 1930's and the
early 1940's thus became covered with a glaze of nationalism and
Marxism, a scrambled compound which was short of the full strength
of militant communism. This was the time that leading intellectuals,
partly escaping the atmosphere of the Ubico regime and partly sepa-
rating themselves from the frustrations of an intellectual's role in
Guatemala, scattered abroad. Dr. Juan Jose Arevalo, the school-
teacher who was to become Guatemala's first postwar "revolutionary"
President, was in Argentina where he further evolved the pro-Com-
munist ideology he was to label "spiritual socialism"; Luis Cardoza
y Aragon, the leading poet and critic who was to serve many Com-
munist-front postwar causes, was associating with leftist circles in
Paris; Alfonso Solorzano Fernandez, who was to play a role in the
ideological orientation and organizational training of the younger
Communists and who is now manager of the Guatemalan Institute
of Social Security (IGSS), was in Mexico as a labor lawyer and
organizer working directly with Vicente Lombardo Toledano, the
Communist labor leader; Jorge Garcia Granados, son of one of
Guatemala's leading political families who was later to turn back to
a moderate leftish line after participating in Guatemala's early post-
war leftist political parties, was associating with extremist revolution-
ary circles in Mexico; and Roberto Alvarado Fuentes, who was to
be instrumental in the organization of Guatemalan Communist-
oriented groups and to rise to the presidency of the Guatemalan Con-
gress, was a radical pro-Communist in Chile. Although several of
these men were themselves moderately well to do, their Guatemalan
following was drawn from the poorer students and lower middle class
"intellectual" elements.

At home in Guatemala the nationalist-Marxist approach must have
achieved an important role in the intellectuals' outlook, although the
authoritarian Ubico regimes prevented organized expression of it.
Enrique Muiioz Meany, the late pro-Communist Foreign Minister
and Minister to France, taught several of Guatemala's future Com-
munist party leaders at the law school of San Carlos University, the
national university, in the early 1940's, and at the Boys Central
Normal School. The fact that the University of San Carlos and the
Boys Central Normal School provided from its students of the early
1940's the majority of the present leaders of the far-leftist nationalist
movement and the Communist and pro-Communist organizations
suggests the fashionableness of the nationalist-Marxist mode of
thought in the prewar and wartime era.

World War II gave a greal, impetus to the revolutionary forces
wliich were to open lli(> way Tor (lu* (-rysfallization of an organized

44

Communist movement. The slogans of the Four Freedoms, the
Atlantic Charter, and the United Nations disarmed the natural de-
fenders of the existing Guatemalan authoritarian system and fired
the ambition if not the understanding of wide segments of the middle
strata of society. For many intellectuals, to judge by their subsequent
writings and actions, the war was a vindication of faith in the
superiority of the Socialist (i. e. Soviet) system over "Fascist dic-
tatorship," by which they understood, with little discrimination, the
Ubico authoritarian system at home and the complex police states
abroad.

For another important group, the younger army officers who were
also mostly recruited from the lower middle class, the war provided
another type of stimulus. The presence of United States Army air
bases and the sending of Guatemalan officers to United States service
schools helped to focus the general dissatisfaction against the Ubico
regime by contrasting the superior material status of foreign officers
and the advanced technological development of a modern nation with
the miserable pay and primitive methods in vogue in Guatemala.

B. THE CRYSTALLIZATION OF A GUATEMALAN COMMUNIST

PARTY

1. Origins in the WU Revolution {19U-I^6) : The catalyst which
accelerated the ferment in the Guatemalan intellectual group and
eventually molded an organized Communist movement was the Guate-
malan revolutions of June and October 1944, which overthrew Presi-
dent Ubico and Gen. Federico Ponce Vaides, the head of the successor
Provisional Government, and which ended the 70-year era dominated
by "Liberal" dictatorships.

The June uprising in 1944 against President Ubico consisted almost
solely of demonstrations by the students of the University of San
Carlos, young teachers, and professional people; it was, in short, a
revolution of "intellectuals" and not of the masses and was only
partially successful. General Ponce was installed as head of the
Provisional Government and soon started a policy of repression. The
revolution was not made secure until October, when a second student
uprising was joined by young army officers and the Provisional
Government was overthrown. A governing board (Junta) consisting
of Maj. Francisco Xavier Arana, who led the key Guardia de Honor
regiment in the revolution, Capt. Jacobo Arbenz of the Escuela
PoUtecniea, who was credited with being the strategist of the insur-
rectionists, and Jorge Toriello, a civilian, were installed as a
triumvirate.

Meanwhile, following the June uprising, the intellectual group had
started the organizations which were to incubate the Communist
movement. Prior to the revolution no labor unions, other than con-

a078C58- M-

45

trolled workingmen's national aid societies, had been permitted, but
in July a schoolteachers' union, the Asociacion Nacional de Maestro8,
was founded and evolved in January 1945 into the Sindicato de
Trahajadores Educadonales de Guatemala (STEG). The railway
workers' union, SAMF, successor to an earlier railwaymen's mutual
benefit society of the same initials, came into being and in August the
Confederacion de Trabaiadores de Guatemala (CTG) was founded
as the country's national labor federation. This was the time that
the Frente Popular Lihertador (FPL) , the "students' party," and the
Partido Renovacion Nacional (RN), the "teachers' party," were
founded with a leftist orientation in support of the presidential can-
didacy of Dr. Arevalo, who had returned from his exile in Argentina.

Within this leftist-nationalist movement there was at first no Com-
munist organization. The old pre- 1932 Communist Party of Guate-
mala had been smashed by President Ubico, who feared an uprising
such as occurred in EI Salvador. Several of its leaders had fled to
Moscow, others had been jailed in Guatemala, and at least one, Jacobo
Sanchez, had died in the hands of Ubico's police. There was thus no
native organization to provide continuity and it was necessary to
reconstruct the party from the base.

The seeds of the future Guatemalan Communist Party were initially
planted within the CTG. In establishing and carrying forward this
organization it was necessary to draw on advisers on labor organiza-
tion, which Guatemala was unable to provide. Those who came for-
ward were not from Western organizations but largely Central
Americans who had had associations with communism. The princi-
pal foreign group consisted of Salvadoran exiles, including Miguel
Marmol Chicas, a Salvadoran Communist who is still associated
with the local labor movement; Abel and Max Cuenca Martinez,
brothers exiled from El Salvador in 1932 for Communist activities,
the latter of whom is now a member of the Political Committee of
professedly non-Communist Partido de la Re'volucion Giiatemalteca;
and Virgilio Guerra Mcndez, now a member of the Communist
Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo (PGT) Political Committee. They
were joined by Antonio Ovando Sanchez, a leader of the pre-Ubico
Guatemalan Communist Party who had gone to Moscow in the early
1930's and was later jailed by Ubico; and by Alfonso Solorzano Fer-
nandez, the labor lawyer who had worked with Lombardo Toledano
in Mexico.

These persons, who had had labor union organizing experience in
other countries, served as the advisers to the young CTG, in which
they quickly established an indoctrination school called the Escuela
Claridad with Abel Cuenca as director. Its ostensible purpose was to
train labor leaders, but its Comiiumist orientation soon became obvi-
ous. (Ovando Sanchez was (|noto(l in 1950 as boasting that ho had

46

begun to form the Communist Party in the Escuela Claridad,) The
school had the close support of the schoolteachers' union, STEG, but
its Communist orientation alarmed the SAMF railway union and
certain other unions, with the result that a factional fight split the
CTG. The SAMF and other unions withdrew to form the Federacion
Sindicdl de Guatemala (FSG) in January 1946, and during the same
month the Arevalo administration formally shut down the Escuela
Claridad with a decree citing it as being in contravention of article 32
of the Guatemalan Constitution, which forbids "political organiza-
tions of a foreign or international character." After the closing of
the school. Communist indoctrination continued through Marxist
"study groups" clandestinely organized within the labor movement
and the political parties.

Communist and Communist-oriented figures also exerted an influ-
ence in the indoctrination of Guatemala's political organizations in
their first years. Among the residents were Edelberto Torres, Sr., the
Nicaraguan Communist; Armando Flores Amador, also a Nicaraguan
Communist; Miguel Angel Vasquez, a Salvadoran Communist; Pedro
Geoffrey Rivas, a Costa Rican Communist figure; and Roberto Al-
varado Fuentes, a Guatemalan who had returned from Chile where
he had been involved in Communist activities.

In the turbulent and disoriented first period of the post- World War
II "revolutionary" era, the Communist doctrines taught by the Escuela
Claridad in the "study groups" and by the Communist-oriented fig-
ures in the country exerted a considerable appeal to the young students
and others who were looking for a unified and firm ideology. In 1944
the average known age of the present Political Committee of the Com-
munist PGT (except Virgilio Guerra, who was 38) was just over 23
years, and their political philosophy was then probably not fully
formulated. Jose Manuel Fortuny, the present Secretary General
of the PGT, then 28, was the eldest and was employed as a part-time
law student and radio newscaster. Bernardo Alvarado Monzon,
the present Secretary for Organization, Alfredo Guerra Borges, now
Secretary for Propaganda, and Carlos Rene Valle, currently on the
Political Committee, were 19-year-old students at the time of the
revolution. Victor Manuel Gutierrez, now the country's top labor
leader, and Mario Silva Jonama, both on the present Political Com-
mittee, were at the time of the revolution schoolteachers in their early
twenties, and Carlos Manuel Pellecer, also a member of the PGT Po-
litical Committee, was 24. Jose Alberto Cardoza, a printer, and
Antonio Ardon, a tailor, both now Political Committee members, were
apparently in their mid-twenties during the revolution. All of these
young men had much the same background : they were of mixed Span-
ish-Indian blood; their families were relatively poor, and they had
attained an educational level higher than the average Guatemalan in
these circumstances.

47

2. Growth Inside of Political and Lahor Organisations {19^6-50) :
It took 3 years after the October 1944 revolution for this group to
crystallize into a permanent Communist organization operating clan-
destinely within President Arevalo's leftist "revolutionary" movement
and 7 years (until January 1952) for the Partido Comunista de
Guatemala (PCG) to emerge as the sole and recognized Stalinist-
Communist party of the country. At first one group, led by Fortuny,
was active within the leftist administration parties, particularly the
Partido Accion Revolucionaria (PAR) which was formed in 1945 by
a fusion of the FPL and the RN.^ Within the PAR they achieved a
considerable influence. Fortuny was twice acting Secretary General
and others of his group obtained offices on the Executive Committee.

Meantime, another group led by Gutierrez and consisting of persons
associated with the Escuela Glaridad gradually came to dominate the
labor movement. With the withdrawal of the SAMF from the CTG
and the formation of the FSG in January 1946, the teachers' union
STEG remained as the most militant union within the CTG and came
to dominate it. Gutierrez rose rapidly from the STEG Executive
Committee to the STEG Secretary Generalship and to the Secretary
Generalship of the CTG. That organization retained its original
affiliation with the WFTU and the CTAL in contrast to the CIO, the
AF of L, and the British Trade Unions Council which withdrew from
the WFTU on the grounds that it was Soviet-dominated.

The Communist-oriented group also gradually infiltrated and won
over the FSG although the FSG had originally been formed in pro-
test to the ascendancy of Communist doctrines in the CTG. The
instrument of the FSG leftist turn was Manuel Pinto Usaga, a Com-
munist-line opportunist leader who rose from the SAMF railroad
workers' union to be the FSG Secretary General, and Jose Alberto
Cardoza. By February 1947 a Gomite Nacional de Unidad Sindical
(CNUS) was founded to coordinate the actions of the CTG and FSG
and lay the foundations for a new united organization. By 1950 the
FSG affiliated with the WFTU and the CTAL and in October 1951
its entry into the Communist orbit was complete.

Fortuny's extreme leftist "political" group and Gutierrez's extreme
leftist "labor" group worked closely together in the revolutionary
movement, and some of the younger leaders, such as Jose Luis Ramos,
were active in both. Their activities were more in the nature of two
aspects of a single current than the activities of separate entities.

In the midst of these developments, the political education of those
who were to found the Communist party went forward. In addition
to Solorzano, Alvarado Fuentes, and the other Guatemalan Com-
munist-oriented personalities who had returned from exile, there was

' Tbo FI'L and (ho RN later withdrew, resulting? in three parties, the PAR the
F'l'L, and the KN.

46

a large influx of visiting Communist leaders between 1945 and 1950
to help advance the ideological and organizational skill of the young
Guatemalan extremists. Among them were Cesar Godoy Urrutia,
leader of the Chilean Communist Party who came first in 1945 ; Pablo
Neruda, the Chilean Communist poet; Eduardo Hubner, a Chilean
Communist figure; Virginia Bravo Letelier, a Chilean Communist
teacher; Bias Roca of the Cuban Communist Party; and Vicente
Lombardo Toledano of the CTAL in Mexico.

During most of these years of the development and indoctrination
of the young revolutionary leaders there was no established or recog-
nized Communist organization in Guatemala, a factor which probably
eased the inner struggle of those being converted. It was an era where
there could be "Communists" without any demand for them also to
be "Communist Party Members."

3. The Foimding of the Gommunist Party in the Late Arevalo Ad-
ministration {19Jf7-51) : Apart from the time which transpired until
a Communist organization was ready to crystallize, the political
climate of the Arevalo administration was not favorable for the open
organization of a Communist party and the early steps toward the
establishment of one were of a conspiratorial character.

President Arevalo pursued a devious and often apparently whimsi-
cal policy toward Communists which, in retrospect, may be summar-
ized as encouraging participation of Communists as individuals in
the administration political and labor groups and discouraging the
formation of an open organized Stalinist party. In the organiza-
tion of the first political parties and labor unions and in the evolve-
ment and early implementation of the Social Security Law (1946)
and Labor Code (1947), he not only tolerated but worked closely with
Communist-oriented figures. During his administration virtually all
of the future Communist party leaders were at one time or another
on the public payroll, one of them, Mario Silva Jonama, rising to be
Under Secretary of Education, and another, Alfredo Guerra Borges,
to be editor of the official gazette (then the Diario de Centra America) .
President Arevalo not only countenanced the visit of Latin American
Communist figures to Guatemala, but personally aided Latin Ameri-
can Communists in their travels in other countries. In his political
speeches and writings, the President maintained that as a "spiritual
socialist" he rejected a purely materialistic (i. e. Communist) con-
cept on the grounds that the dignity of man was more important
than his economic needs, but this did not prevent him from finding a
common viewpoint and a workable arrangement with Communist
figures on such meeting grounds as social reform and opposition to
United States "imperialism." Moreover, his talk of playing one ad-
ministration political camp against another in order to retain the
decisive voice for himself aided the growth of the Communist move-

49

ment, which benefited from the inability of most parties to forsake
its support in the delicate balance.

President Arevalo, nonetheless, from time to time took concrete
steps to impede the growth of an open Communist organization. In
February 1946 there was his closing down of the Escuela Glaridad.
From 1946 to 1948 and again in 1949-50 he kept Carlos Manuel Pelle-
cer, most liery of the young extremists, out of the country as Secretary
of Legation in Paris despite Pellecer's repeated efforts to be trans-
ferred home, and the assignment of Alfredo Guerra Borges and Abel
Cuenca to diplomatic missions in this period suggests further use of
this device to impede Communist organization. In May 1947 he sent
Abel and Max Cuenca out of the country, and on October 4 of that
year his police put the Salvadoran Communists Virgilio Guerra,
Miguel Marmol, and other foreign Communists across the Mexican
border, thus momentarily breaking up the group that had taught
at the Escuela Glaridad and served as advisers to the CTG. (They
made their way back quietly shortly thereafter.)

It was in this atmosphere that the first successful attempt to form
a Guatemalan Communist Party was made on September 28, 1947,
\mder the name of the Vanguardia Democrdtica. It was, in essence,
a conspiratorial group. Its probable leaders, of whom Fortuny is the
only one definitely identified, were to the outside world high officers of
the PAR and the labor unions. Fortuny was formally elected Sec-
retary General of the group in 1948. There was no announcement of
its formation, and its membership, except for Fortuny, has never been
revealed. In a press interview almost 4 years later, on July 1, 1951,
Fortuny set the September 28, 1947, date as the day of the founding of
the organized Communist party, but until 1950, the final year of
Arevalo's administration, the existence of a Communist party was a
successfully guarded secret.^

On December 21, 1947, young leftist followers of the administra-
tion's "revolutionary" movement, among them a group later to be
identified as Communist, founded the Alianza de la Juventud Demo-
crdtica de Guatemala (AJDG), a youth organization now affiliated
with the International Communist World Federation of Democratic
Youth (WFDY). One of its first leaders was Jose H. Zamora, a
Salvadoran, who was ousted from the Secretary Generalship in 1950
and proceeded publicly to accuse Mario Silva Jonama, Antonio
Sierra Gonzalez, Octavio Reyes, and Huberto Alvarado of forming a
Commimist group within the organization. The charge suggests that

' Although Fortuny's statement dates an organized party from 1947, the present
Communist Party, the PGT, dates its anniversaries from the First Party Congress
on September 28, 1949. It publicized September 28, 1063, as the "Fourth
Anniversary of the Party."

50

from the beginning the AJDG was an offshoot of the still clandestine
Communist Party.

In the spring of 1949, Fortuny and Gutierrez, both ostensibly still
members of the PAR, traveled to Europe where they attended, in
April, the first World Congress of the Partisans of Peace in Paris.
Gutierrez, after a brief trip back to Guatemala, also attended the
Milan Congress of the WFTU, where he was elected a member of the
Executive Committee and mixed further with the leaders of inter-
national communism. Fortuny, who was elected a member of the
Permanent Committee of the World Peace Congress at Paris, went
on to tour the "People's Democracies" of Eastern Europe.

After their return, there was a marked increase in the tempo of
the effort to create an open Communist Party. During the summer
there had been the assassination of Colonel Arana, the 1944 triumvir
who had become Chief of the Armed Forces, by persons sympathetic
to the presidential ambitions of Colonel Arbenz, and an abortive up-
rising by Arana's supporters in the army which Arbenz put down
with the help of labor unions. The time was pro])itious for the ex-
treme left. In September 1949 Gutierrez resigned from the PAR.
During the same month, on September 28, the clandestine Communist
Party, the Vanguardia Democrdtica^ held its First Party Congress and
purged its ranks. It was presumably at this congre^ss that the name
Partido Gomunista de Guatemala (PCG) was adopted, and that
Fortuny was reelected Secretary General. The present Guatemalan
Communist Party numbers its anniversaries from this event.

On May 25, 1950, when the campaign for a succassor to President
Arevalo was already under way, Fortuny announced his resignation
from the PAR of which he was then a member of the Executive Com-
mittee. Along with his resignation there were those of Mario Silva
Jonama, PAR Secretary for Propaganda ; Bernado Alvarado Monzon,
Secretary for Youth Affairs; Antonio Ardon, Secretary for Social
Matters ; Humberto Ortiz, Secretary for Rural Affairs ; Pedro Fern-
andez and Alfredo Guerra Borges, ex-members of the Political Com-
mittee ; and Jose Luis Ramos, Regelio Lopez, and Carlos Rene Valle.
A month later, on June 21, 1950, this group brought out a newspaper
entitled Octubre whose initial subheading was "For a Great Commu-
nist Party, Vanguard of the Workers, the Peasants and the People."
The group, however, still did not openly profess themselves as the
Comimunist Party and was known as the "■Qctuhre Communists."

Fortuny's ^'Octubre Communist" group, which was then the visible
manifestation of the still secret PCG, was distinct from but not
opposed to another Communist political organization, the Partido
Revolucionario Ohrero de Guatemala (PROG), which was also
founded in June 1950 by Gutierrez as a Communist-type party for

51

the further indoctrination of political and labor leaders. It was For-
tuny's idea to proceed rapidly with the establishment of an open Com-
munist party, while Gutierrez's statements indicate that he thought
that a further period of ideological training in a Communist-front
party was necessary.

The outgoing Arevalo administration did not impede these de-
velopments but it moved to dissociate the ^'Octubre Communists"
from the public administration. Mario Silva Jonama was removed
as Director of the national radio station TGW, where he had gone
after leaving the Ministry of Education, and Alfredo Guerra Borges
was dismissed as editor of the official gazette. In the summer of 1950
the Supreme Court, which was responsive to administration policy,
decided that Fortuny's term on the National Electoral Council had
expired, overruling his contention that he should not be limited to
filling out the teiTn of his predecessor but should have a full term.

On September 6 Octubre announced the founding of an evening
Marxist indoctrination school named "Jacobo Sanchez," after the
Communist "assassinated" by Ubico. It was under the direction of
Alfredo Guerra Borges, and Gutierrez, though not the Octubre group,
was an instructor. The school, however, was promptly shut down
by Col. Elfego Monzon, Arevalo's Minister of the Interior.

Despite these frictions with the authorities, the '•'■Octubre Commu-
nists" as well as the PROG worked loyally with the revoluntionary
parties in the presidential campaign of Colonel Arbenz, President
Arevola's chosen successor. Leaders of these two organizations and
of the trade unions under their influence formed the Gomite Politico
Nacional de los Trabajadores (CPNT), which propagandized for
Arbenz and the administration's congressional candidates, among the
successful ones of whom were Gutierrez and Jose Alberto Cardoza
of the PROG, Humberto Ortiz of the Octubre Communists, and Cesar
Montenegro Paniagua of the FSG and SAMF who was later openly
to join the Communist ranks.

4. The Communist Party in the Arbenz Administration {1951-53) :
With the inauguration of President Arbenz on March 15, 1951,
Fortuny's Communist Party started on the final phase of its emer-
gence as an open and legal Communist Party. On April 4 Fortuny
signed a press statement as "Secretary General of the Partido Comu-
nista de Guatemala''''] this was the first avowal that an organized
Communist Party existed in Guatemala. In May there were further
open contacts with international Communist figures when Lombardo
Toledano, Secretary General of the CTAL, and Louis Saillant,
Secretary General of WFTU, attended a Guatemalan City Conference
of Latin American Land and Air Transport Workeivs' Unions and
counseled local labor leaders on forming a single Gnateinalan labor
federation. On June 21, the fii'sl anniversary of (he publication of

52

Octubre, the party held a public rally in a theater furnished by the
Government under a law permitting the use of theaters for "cultural"
affairs, and with high officials of the Government in attendance. It
was announced that the party would seek to be entered on the Civil
Registry in order to attain status as a recognized party under the
electoral laws.

There remained one organizational problem to be solved : the co-
existence of Fortuny's PCG and Gutierrez's PROG, both of which
were Communist in ideology but only the first of which professed
itself Communist. In July, in a press interview, Gutierrez stated
flatly that he was a Communist. In October his CTG and the FSG
joined in the establishment of the Confederacion General de Traba-
jadores de Guatemala (CGTG), and he was elected its Secretary Gen-
eral at the head of an Executive Committee in which the key positions
were held by Communists. In November he attended the WFTU
Congress in Berlin, going on to Moscow. Upon his return in Janu-
ary 1952, he announced the dissolution of the PROG and advised its
members to join Fortuny's PCG.

On January 25, 1952, the Gominfonn newspaper, "For a Lasting
Peace, For a People's Democracy" published in Bucharest, Rumania,
carried an article summarizing the findings of the Central Committee
of the PCG on the shortcomings of Octubre. The publication of this
article, in effect, confirmed the acceptance of Fortuny's PCG by the
international Communist movement as the authorized Communist
Party in Guatemala.

During 1952 the representatives of the PCG began to be reported
in the press as sitting in on President Arbenz's political conferences
with the representatives of the other leftist administration parties.
Early in the year there was a further upsurge in contacts with the
international Communist movement. In March Bias Roca, Juan
Marinello, and Salvador Aguirre, leaders of the Cuban Communist
Party, visited Guatemala. In late May, Mario Silva Jonama, mem-
ber of the PCG Political Committee, left for Moscow and the pre-
liminary meeting of the Asiatic and Pacific Peace Conference in
Peking, returning in early October. In September Jose Alberto Car-
doza, who had followed Gutierrez into the PCG, attended the main
Asiatic and Pacific Peace Conference in Peking, coming and goincr
through Moscow. '^

Meanwhile, the party had played a leading part in the enactment of
the Agrarian Reform Law of July 17, 1952, wh'ch was steered through
Congress by the Special Committee on Agrarian Reform, whose chair-
man was Gutierrez. The party leadership saw the agrarian reform
as the vehicle to control the rural areas, and at this time a decision
was taken to abandon restrictions on membership and to receive as
many applicants as possible to create a "mass party.?'

53

In October the PCG announced that it would hold its Second Party
Congress in December, and when this took place on December 11-14,
a niunber of basic organizational decisions were taken: to change the
party name to the Partido Guutemalteco del Trahajo (the Guatemalan
Labor Party— PGT) in order to sidestep the resistance to the word
Communist and probably to ease the legalizatiou of the party ; to ex-
pand the party membership; to register the party m the Civil Regis-
try and to transform the weekly Octubre into a daily paper. The
Congress also approved statutes for the PGT modeled on the standard
organization of Stalinist Communist parties (see section II, A), and
reelected Fortuny as Secretary General at the head of a Pohtical
Committee of 11 members and a Central Committee of 21 members.

On December 19 the PGT was registered as a political party m the
Civil Registry despite the protest of anti-Communist groups that
both the Constitution and the Electoral Law specifically forbid politi-
cal organizations of a foreign or international character." It pre-
sented a list of 532 members. 32 over the minimum required, to support
its registration petition. The PGT then participated in the January
1953 congressional elections as a member of the administrations
"Democratic Electoral Front." One of the PGT candidates, Pellecer,
won in the Department of Escuintla and the other, Fortuny, lost m
the Department of Guatemala, the opposition stronghold.

On February 17, 1953, the PGT reopened the "Jacobo Sanchez
school as a party cadre school. By August 15 the party had collected
some $10,000 from its basic organizations (cells) and launched a
daily morning tabloid, Tribuna. Popular, ($10,000 is an inadequate
sum to finance a daily newspaper in Guatemala, and many observers
believe it is Government-subsidized.) In the PGT drive to increase
party membership, the Party's first National Conference on Organiza-
tion on August 8-9 claimed a 100 percent rise in the number of mem-
bers since the December 1952 Party Congress. _

The PGT had by then become an open and major organization m
Guatemalan political life. During the remainder of 1953 and early
1954, the party grew in numbers and influence. In November it felt
itself strong enough to present candidates independently of the other
administration parties in six selected municipalities and elected four
mayors, including that of the important Pacific slope center ol
E'^cuintla. Party membership grew, and although totals were not
announced, the party press identified new cells in the countryside

Meanwhile, pursuing the "popular front" tactic, the PGT had taken
a lead in transforming the "Democratic Electoral Front" of the 1953
congressional elections into a permanent "National Democratic
Front," whose council met with President Arbenz on policy questions
and increasingly took over the Cabinet's policy-making f auctions. In

S4

a speech on April 4, 1954, for instance, Carlos Manuel Pellecer re-
vealed that Guatemalan tactics for the Caracas Conference had been
decided upon at a meeting between Foreign Minister Guillermo Tori-
ello, the President, and the representatives of the Front. The Front
came under effective Communist domination by the addition of the
Communist-controlled CGTG and Communist-influenced CNCG to
the political parties which originally composed it. At one meeting in
1954, four of the representatives were avowed PGT members, four
were established as Communist sympathizers by trips to Moscow, par-
ticipation in the "Peace" movement, etc., and two were political col-
laborators with the Communists.

Secfi'on il

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MODERN GUATEMALAN
COMMUNIST PARTY

A. PARTY ORGANIZATION

1. The Central Party Organization: The Partido Guatemalteco del
Trahajo is organized along the centralized authoritarian lines on the
model of the Soviet Communist Party under Stalin, and the party
discipline deriving from this organizational form has been a unique
asset in the Guatemalan political environment where other entities
tend to be lax and haphazard. The party is now organized under
statutes drawn up by the Political Committee, adopted with no known
cliange at the Party Congress in December 1952, and entered on the
Civil Registry the same month.^ They do not incorporate the changes
in terminology made by the Soviet Communist Party at its Nineteenth
Party Congress in October 1952 (e. g. the change of the name of the
Political Bureau to the Presidium), but are substantively identical
with the organization of Stalinist Communist Parties prior to the
Nineteenth Congress.

The party is in effect ruled by its Political Committee, currently
composed of 11 members, which in turn is dominated by the Secre-
tariat, currently composed of 6 members. The Political Committee,
which is elected by the Central Committee, "directs the Party's activi-
ties when the Central Committee is not in session." The Secretariat,
which is elected by the Central Committee from among members of
the Political Committee, "is responsible for the daily work of the
Party leadership, for organizing tlie execution of the resolutions of the
Central Committee and Political Committee, for the assignment and

'The Oulolier dnift statulos an> the only ones available for study and the
Kuhsetiuent material i.s l)ased on tlieiu.

S5

training of leaders." The Secretary General of the Central Com-
mittee by statute heads the Secretariat and presides over the Political
Committee.

The Political Committee and the Secretariat form the heart of the
party, for the more unwieldy Central Committee, which is supposed
to meet in plenary session every 3 months, has never been recorded
as doing anything but ratifying the work and reports of the party
leaders. The Central Committee, currently composed of 21 members,
is elected by the Party Congress, which is "the Party's highest au-
thority" but is "normally called by the Central Committee every 3
years" and thus has little direct influence on daily party activity.

The Central Committee in addition to its Political Committee has
standing Commissions on Organization, Propaganda, Education, La-
bor Unions, Women's, Peasants', Finance, and Youth Affairs. As will
be seen, those concerned with activities outside of the party serve to
organize the party's influence in "mass organizations."

The party Propaganda Commission publishes a daily, Tuesday
through Sunday, tabloid-size newspaper, Trihuna Popular, and has
announced a bimonthly magazine, Octuhre. Since February 1953
the party has been conducting the " Jacobo Sanchez" evening school to
train party cadres. The Organization Commission publishes a
monthly Boletin de Organisacion.

2. Regional and Local Organizations: The subordinate party or-
ganizations in essence are abbreviated reproductions of the centralism
of the national party headquarters. The statutes provide for depart-
mental and municipal organizations, and regional, sectional and
district organizations as the next or "intermediate" echelon of the
party structure. An Assembly, which meets once a year or oftener, is
again the "highest authority" of these organizations, and depart-
mental, municipal, regional, etc., committees are elected. However,
real power is vested in a Secretariat, which is elected by these com-
mittees from among their members and which "shall be the executive
bodies of the respective organizations." The supremacy of the party's
national leadership is specifically provided for by obhgating the
"intermediate" organizations to "make certain that the resolutions of
higher Party organs are carried out,"

The foundation of the party structure is the "Basic Committee,"
popularly referred to as the "cell," to which every member must
belong. It elects its own secretaries and has the functions of carrying
out the party's propaganda, to report to higher headquarters on the
"sentiments and needs of the worker," to carry out organizational and
recruiting works, and to enforce discipline.

Some 30 party basic organizaiions were identified by name in
Communist publications in 1953-54. These cells were named "Oc-
tubre,"' "Juan Pablo Wainwright," "Pedro Molina," "Mao Tze Tung,"

56

(in the Department of Suchitepequez), "Dmitri Shostakovich," "Es-
trella Eoja," "Bandera Roja" (Guatemala), "Dolores Ibarruri,"
"Maximiliano Gorki," "Georgi Dimitroff," "Jose Marti," "Francisco
Morazon," "Mariano Galvez," "Tecun Uman," "Decreto 900," "Jose
Manuel Fortuny," "Espartaco" ( Jutiapa) , "9 de Mayo," "5 de Mayo"
(Retalhuleu), "1 de Mayo" (Alta Verapaz), "Enrique Munoz Meany"
(Chimaltenango), "Julius Fucik," "Jose Diaz," "Jesus Menendez,"
"Popul Vuh," "Kaibil Balan," "Luis Sanchez Batten," (Solola),
"Martires Rosenberg," "Francisco Barrundin," "Justo Kufino Bar-
rios," and "Pavel Korchaguin."

It has positively been stated at various times in the party press that
the party has cells in the Departments of Guatemala, Alta Verapaz,
Baja Verapaz, Jutiapa, Santa Rosa, Suchitepequez, Retalhuleu,
Solola, Chimaltenango, Quezaltenango, Escuintla, Peten, Chiquimula,
Zacapa and Izabal. These are 15 of Guatemala's 22 Departments.
There are probably also organizations in other Departments.

3. '■'•DemocratiG Oentralisvi,'''' the Party's Discipline : The statutes of
the PGT specifically provide that the party structure is based on
"democratic centralism," which they define in a key statement as
"subordination of the minority to the majority ; of the members to
the decisions of the Base Committee ; of lower organs to higher organs ;
and all organs and organizations to the Central Committee." Since,
as outlined above, the Central Committee is effectively dominated by
its Political Committee and eventually by the Secretariat and Secre-
tary General, the term "democratic centralism" covers up in Guate-
mala as elsewhere an effective authoritarian rule of the party by its
leading elements.

A rigid disciplinary system is provided in the statutes for individual
members. They must pay dues regularly (a duty of symbolic as well
as financial importance) ; respect and unconditionally carry out party
decisions after they are taken ; and defend the party unity and combat
any divisionist activity. If party members hold electoral offices they
must hand over their entire salary to the party and "The Party, taking
into consideration their previous salaries, will pay for their new neces-
sities and the representation expenses connected with their positions
which will allow them to live decently within the Party's means."
Party cards are renewed annually, at which time dues must be paid
up to date ; the last exchange took place in December 1953-January
1954.

B. THE PARTY LEADERSHIP

1. The Apparent Supremacy of Fortuny: The PGT leadership in
1954, composed totally of ladinos, represents a welding together of
Fortuny's "political group" and Gutierrez's "labor-PROG" group,
and despite the doubts of some that Fortuny is the leading Communist,

57

an analysis of the available evidence indicates that he is m a position
effectively to exercise control of the party machinery.

Fortuny himself, at the December 1952 Congress, held onto the key
position of Secretary General and, as snch, is the presiding officer ot
the Central Committee, of the Political Committee, and of the Secre-
tariat. Moreover, the other four Secretaries of the Central Commit-
tee-Alvarado Monz6n, Guerra Borges, Silva Jonama, and Kamos-
are ex-members of Fortuny's Octuhre group. They in turn control
key commissions of the Central Committee. Alvarado Monzon is
head of the Organization Commission, which supervises the party
macliinery ; Guerra Borges is temporarily in charge of the Propaganda
Commission and is editor of the party newspaper; Ramos is chief ot
the Peasants' Commission, which plays an important role m agrarian
reform policy, and Silva Jonama presides over the Education Com-
mission, which has charge of party indoctrination.

Bv contrast Gutierrez and the group which is now active m the
CGTG has a secondary place in the formal party hierarchy. None ot
them are Secretaries. Gutierrez, Cardoza, and Virgiho Giierra,
leaders of the old labor group are members of the Political Com-
mittee, and the first is head of the Labor Union Commission. Pellecer,
who was associated with the Octvhre group but whose principal ac-
tivity is in the CGTG, is also a member of the Political Committee.
While the labor group thus has important positions m the PGi
leadership, it does not have the controlling positions that the Fortuny

group has. „ ^ x i i j

In the background there is reinforcing evidence of Fortuny s lead-
ing role in the party. By a choice which became evident after
Gutierrez's return from Moscow in January 1952, it was Fortuny s
Octubre group rather than Gutierrez's PROG group which emerged
as the chosen instrument of international communism m Guatemala.
While this appeared more the settling of a friendly rivalry than a
victorv in a bitter factional battle, it is evident that Gutierrez and his
ffroup"'assumed for the moment a secondary role in mtraparty affairs,
although this is often obscured by the fact that because of their role
in labor affairs and in Congress Gutierrez and those associated with
him receive more newspaper space than their superior officers m the
formal party structure.

The case made to deny Fortuny's preeminence is centered on his
alle'^ed lack of intellectual attainments, his reported laziness, and his
repM-ted lack of character. These arguments, however, are short of
conclusive, for they neglect the cardinal fact that Fortuny has had
more experience and successes in Guatemalan political life than any
other Communist leader: He was a 1944 founder of the FPL, twice
Secretary General of the PAR ; leader of the Vanguardia Democrdtica
. from its founding in 1947, and of the Partido Comwnista de Guat&wMa

1

4

from 1949 onward; and the winner in the settlement as to whether
his PCG or Gutierrez's PROG should be the chosen international
Communist movement instrument in Guatemala. In the history of
the Guatemalan Communist Party, as in the history of all Communist
Parties since Stalin undermined Lenin's policies and overcame
Trotsky, it appears risky to presuppose that the most intelligent and
the most doctrinaire Communist must be the party leader.

2. Contacts with Moscoio: Although none of the members of the
PGT Political Committee are known to have visited Moscow before
the 1944 revolution, there has since been a continual flow of PGT
leaders to the Soviet capital. At least 6 of the 11 have been there
since the war. Pellecer was Secretary of Legation there in 1945
and went to Eastern Europe in 1949. Fortuny toured the "Peoples
Democracies" in 1949 after attending the Paris Partisans of Peace
Congress and quite possibly took in the U. S. S. R. on his tour. He was
on a trip to Moscow from November 5, 1953, to January 12, 1954.
Gutierrez went to Moscow in December 1951 and again in November
1953; Silva Jonama and Jose Alberto Cardoza went through the
U. S. S. R. on their way back and forth to the June and September
Asiatic and Pacific Peace Conferences in 1952. Jose Luis Ramos was
there in 1953. Virgilio Guerra was scheduled to leave for Moscow in
May 1954. In addition, Oscar Edmundo Palma, a member of the
Central Committee, went to the Soviet Union after the April 1953
meeting of the World Peace Congress in Budapest, and a number of
Guatemalan youth and "peace" delegations visited the U. S. S. R.,
China, and the "Peoples Democracies" in 1952 and 1953.

Apart from tliese trips the PGT leadership is in contact with the
main current of international communism through participation in
a variety of international conferences and congresses sponsored by the
WFTU, the World Peace Council, the World Federation of Demo-
cratic Youth, the International Students Union, etc. Fortuny,
Gutierrez, Silva Jonama, and Cardoza, as mentioned above, attended
"Peace" meetings, while Gutierrez attended the WFTU Congresses
in Milan (1949), Berlin (1951), and is now a delegate to the Vienna
(WFTU) Congress. In addition to this attendance, there is a con-
stant exchange of communications between the Vienna lieadquarters
of the WFTU and Gutierrez as CGTG Secretary General, some of
vrhich are published in the press as WFTU messages of "solidarity"
with various Guatemalan strikes. Similar communications pass be-
tween Soviet international organizations, such as the World Fed-
eration of Democratic Youth, and their Guatemalan affiliates.

There are also, as described above, the frequent visits of Latin
American Communist leaders, such as Dionisio Encina, Secretary
General of the Mexican Communist Party, who attended the Decem-
ber 1952 PGT Party Congress.

58

59

Supplementing these personal contacts, the PGT leadership receives
a flow of literature from Moscow as well as the headquarters of vari-
ous Soviet-controlled international organizations. To judge by the
contents of the former party weekly Octubre and the present daily
Trihuna Popular, these include the Spanish-language edition of the
Cominform Journal "For a Lasting Peace, For a People's Democracy"
published in Bucharest, and a limited file of the Soviet TASS news
agency.

From these various sources, the PGT leadership is in constant con-
tact with the twistings and turnings of Soviet tactics and is able to
adjust its own policies accordingly. Though there are doubtless addi-
tional surreptitious channels of communications and Soviet control,
as has proved the case in Communist parties elsewhere, these pub-
licly recorded contacts appear suflBcient to give the PGT adequate
orientation.

C. PARTY MEMBERSHIP

1. Estimates Vary from 3,000-4,000: The PGT, a Communist party
which here as elsewhere gives every evidence of valuing key positions
over weight of members, has never publicly revealed the number of its
members and any estimate above 3,000 must at this stage be regarded
as guesswork.

The public evidence on party membership ^ starts with the fact that
the PGT in December 1952, submitted the names, addresses, and
identification card numbers of 532 members to the Civil Eegistrar to
meet a requirement of the Electoral Law that this information be
given on 500 or more members before a political party can be reg-
istered. Later, at a party organizational conference in August 1953,
the claim was publicly made that the party's membership had in-
creased "over 100 percent" since the previous December, a statement
which, if taken at face value, would have made the party membership
at least 1,070 in mid-1953.

However, there is circumstantial evidence that the party member-
ship was greater than 532 when the names were handed in to the
Civil Eegistrar in December 1952. The names of several national
Communist figures, such as Victor Manuel Gutierrez of the PGT
Political Committee, were not included, possibly because it was not
convenient to obtain the needed data from them, and in the months
following the publication of this roster a score of other party members
have been identified in the press. More importantly, logic dictates

^ In assessing Communist strength In Guatemala it is necessary to discrimi-
nate between the category "PGT members" and the wider category of "Com-
munists." As indicated above, all Comiminists in Guatemala are not necessarily
members of the PGT and this sul)section is addressed only to PGT members.

60

that the Communist leadership when required to produce only 500
names would not have needlessly exposed many more members to pos-
sible future action against them. Moreover, any secret members cam-
ouflaging under the labels of other parties or orgaiiizations would
scarcely be exposed.

Thus, if party membersliip was greater than 532 in December 1952
and the claim that it has since doubled is correct, the PGT would have
counted more than 1,100 members at the August 1953 Organization
Conference. A party member was reported in the summer of 1953
to have asserted that party membership stood at 3,000, but it seems
unlikely that even within the party more than a few persons have
access to the party rolls. Nonetheless, it would appear a fair guess
that the party numbered at least 2,000 in mid-1953 and every indica-
tion, such as the November 1953 municipal elections, has been that the
party has continued to multiply rapidly. A reasonable estimate of
its strength in May 1954 would appear to be 3,000-4,000.

There is little doubt that the PGT is now in a stage of expanding
membership and is tactically emphasizing a "mass" party rather than
a select party. At the last party congress in December 1952, the
need to recruit members was stressed and the party name was changed
from the Oomunista de Guatem,ala (PCG) to the PGT (Guate-
malan Labor Party) in part because the word "Communist" in the
party title was acknowledged to be a hindrance to its acceptance by
the masses. This confirmed the decision taken at the time of the en-
actment of the Agrarian Eeform Law that June to expand the party
and seemed a clear indication that the party was willing to accept less
than fully indoctrinated militants as members at this stage. The
apparently successful recruiting drive doubling the party's size in
7 months tends to support this impression. The party has benefited
in recruiting not only from its change of name but by its registration
as a legal party in December 1952 and by the many evidences that
it enjoys the favor of the Arbenz administration.

As to the composition of the party membership, the National Con-
ference on Organization in August 1953 stated that 50 percent were
urban and rural workers, 29 percent farmers and tenants, and 21
percent middle class.

D. THE VEILED COMMUNISTS

1. The Non-Party C omviimists : In addition to the leadership and
membership of the PGT, the party enjoys significant support from
persons who are ideologically Communists but not openly PGT mem-
bers, and from what is possibly an undci-ground Communist group.
This subject is naturally shrouded in secrecy and the publicly avail-
able iirforniiition is limited, but any assessment of the overt party or-
ganizal ion must recognize that it is only at llie nioinent the instrument

,1 —

61

of international communism and that, in any shifting developments
of the future, a sizable group of persons dedicated to Moscow's prin-
ciples are available to carry forward the cause.

Among those who are most probably nonparty Communists m
important positions are Alfonso Solorzano and Abel Cueuca. The
former was a member of the recognized Communist Party in Mexico
tind tlie latter was a Communist in El Salvador as far back as 1932, but
there is no evidence that they have joined Fortuny's PGT. Solorzano,
according to a wide variety of political observers, was expelled from
the Mexican Communist Party, which he had joined during his pre-
1944 exile and association with Lombardo Toledano, but he considers
himself ideologically a better Communist than the ruling members of
the PGT, who in many cases were his pupils. Cuenca, likewise, is
generally reported to be out of sympathy with Fortuny's group. An-
other of the same character is Koberto Alvarado Fuentes, who is some-
times said, but with less consistency, to have been a Communist Party
member in Chile and is now closely associated with Solorzano.

The differences between these personalities and the leadership of
Fortuny's PGT appear to be of an organizational and tactical order,
for none of them are ever recorded to have entered into conflict with
the thesis that Soviet-type communism is inevitable and desirable
and should be promoted in Guatemala. In June 1952 Solorzano,
Cuenca, and Alvarado Fuentes, then Secretary General of the Partido
Accion Revolucionaria (PAR), were principals in the establishment
of the Partido de la Revoludon Guatemalteca (PRG) as the "single
revolutionary party" and thus, in essence, showed themselves as favor-
ing the continued use of the administration parties as the principal
vehicle for furthering Communist objectives. Fortuny by that time
\\as committed to the use of an organized Communist Party as the
principal vehicle, and his party, then the PCG, had the previous
January received the endorsement of the Cominforni Journal. On
July 3, 1952, he launched an attack in Octubre on the PRG and "work-
ers' leaders" (unnamed but undoubtedly Solorzano, Cuenca, and
Alvarado Fuentes) who had participated in founding the PRG and
who he charged were "deviationists." Shortly thereafter, in a labor
dispute in Solorzano's Institute of Guatemalan Social Security
(IGSS), Carlos Manuel Pellecer, the PGT Communist who was ad-
vising the workers, in a radio address labeled Solorzano "another Ana
Pauker," referring to the Rumanian Communist leader who had
shortly before been sensationally purged. Pellecer renewed his at-
tack on Solorzano in April 1954.

The fact that the Solorzano-Cuenca-Alvarado Fuentes group and
others are "deviationists" from the tactical viewpoint of Fortuny's
PGT does not necessarily imply that they are out of step with the long-
range purposes of the Moscow Communist movement. Overlooking

«2

the possibility that they are subject to separate instructions, the facts
are that before and since the 1952 flareup over the PRG both groups
have pulled together in the traces to achieve Communist objectives in
the fields of local labor and political organizations, the publicizing
of the "Peace" campaign and other Soviet propaganda objectives,
and the. orientation of the administration's social security, agrarian
reform, and other programs along Communist lines.

2. The Intellectual Pro-Communists: Another group reinforcing
the PGT is composed of young intellectuals who are active in politics
and follow the Communist line undeviatingly although they are pub-
licly, and quite possibly privately, not members of Fortuny's PGT.
In many cases they were members of the university and schoolteachers,
groups from which the Communist leadership is drawn ; and in some
cases they say, with conviction if possible self-deception, that they are
"not Communists" although thej-^ meet every qualification except PGT
membership. They are, in short, a group which was subjected to the
same influences as the intellectuals who formed the PGT, but they
may have stopped short of party membership.

Among the typical members of this group is Julio Estrada de
la Hoz, president of Congress in 1952-53, once a leading member of
Alvarado Fuentes' faction in the PAR. As a leader of the PAR and
one-time editor of the Diario de la Manana, he has consistently fol-
lowed the Communist line, although a lifelong friend and political
associate has stated he is "not a Communist." Another of the former
university group is Jaime Diaz Rozzotto, Secretary General of Presi-
dent Arbenz' Executive Office and Secretary General of Renovation
Nacional^ a leftist administration party. He professes not to be a
Communist, although he was the first Secretary General of the Guate-
malan "Peace" movement in 1949 and has since engaged in every major
Communist-sponsored cause to the extent of welcoming the 1953 truce
in Korea as another step toward the establishment of a "Socialist
World."

Among schoolteachers, the intellectual Communist group counts
Oscar Jimenez de Leon, a leader of the pro-Communist wing of the
RX; Hector Fion Garma, an RN deputy who was active with
Gutierrez in the STEG teachers' union; and Alfonso Orantes, ex-
president of the National Electoral Board, a member of the PRG
Political Committee, and president of the Communist-front Oasade
Cultura.

Without the discipline inherent in PGT membership, the political
orientation of this type of intellectual and his ardor for the Com-
munist cause is constantly shifting. Some, such as Diaz Rozzotto,
appear more openly identified with communism as time evolves. On
the other hand, in the past 2 years two have clashed with the PGT
leadership: Amor Americo Velasco de Leon was expelled from his

63

key position as Secretary of Organization of the Confederacion
National Gampesina de Guatemala (CNCG) in September 1952 for
attemi^ting to counter PGT efforts to dominate that agricultural
fedcviition, and Alvaro Hu<ro Salgucro was removed from the leader-
sliip of the PAR and hiter publicly accused the PGT of undermining
him. Both had x^i'eviously acted in harmony with Communist
objectives.

3. A PossiUe Crypto-Communist Group: The effective ranks of the
PGT are possibly further reinforced by crypto-Communists, some
of whom are masquerading in ostensibly non-Communist organiza-
tions and some of whom may have been placed in the shadows where
they would not be exposed directly in the always-present possibility
of an anti-Connnunist coup in this country. The names of only ap-
proximately 600 of the PGT's estimated 3,000-4,000 membership have
been made public.

There is no public evidence of the existence of such a crypto-Com-
munist group, but circimistances give grounds for suspicion. First,
the PGT itself was by Fortuny's statement a secret group from 1947
to 1D51 when it acted within the PAR and other political and labor
organizations, and nothing in its subsequent action indicates aban-
donment of this tactic. Second, it is logical to suppose that a person
holding a good position in the administration parties or the Govern-
ment would be advised to keep his membership in the PGT secret if
publicly acknowledged membership Avould be a handicap to the use
of his position for the PGT's purposes. Third, a number of per-
sons who were active in the Escuela Clandad and early Communist
activities have vanished from the limelight. While a proportion may
be accounted for by the announced purge of 1949 and other purges,
some may well be kept in the background in intraparty activities to
provide a nucleus of underground leadership in the event the party's
position in Guatemala changes.

The nonparty Communist of the Solorzano type, the Communist-
oriented intellectual of the Estrada de la Hoz variety, and the possible
member of a crypto-Communist group thus must be taken into account
in evaluating the manpower available to the Communists, for doubt-
less any one of them is more valuable to the PGT in achieving its ob-
jectives than the larger numbers of farm workers blanketed into the
party in the current membership expansion drive.

E. THE AIMS OF THE GUATEMALAN COMMUNIST PARTY

1. Suh ordination to Soviet Aims: The primary but seldom publicly
professed i\\m of the PGT is to act in the role of the vanguard in
Guiiteiuala of the "inevitable"' trium})li of world communism led by
the Soviet Union. While neither the party statutes nor the public
fitatenients of PGT IcmiUm-s acknowledge a direct organizational sub-

64

ordination to the Soviet party-state, numerous party actions and
statements testify to the ideological subordination of the PGT to the
Soviet Union. For instance, in a message of October 2, 1952, to the
Soviet Nineteenth Party Congress, the Guatemalan Communist Party
stated, "Our Party salutes the indestructible unity of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union which is a guarantee of the successful con-
struction of a Communist society in your homeland, a beacon through-
out the world for workers. Inspired by your example, we will inten-
sify our struggle for the national independence and happiness of our
people."

More indirectly, the PGT daily acknowledges the Soviet Union's
ideological leadership by adjusting its own party line with great sen-
sitivity to the twistings and turnings of the Soviet line. Thus, in a
few months early in 1953 the PGT's Octubre and other propaganda
outlets blandly endorsed the accusations of Stalin's Government that
"Jewish doctors" had plotted the death of certain Soviet leaders, re-
versed themselves after Stalin's death in March by endorsing the new
line put out by Beria, Minister of the Interior and of State Security,
that the doctors' confessions had been extracted by "impermissible
means," and finally reversed themselves again by joining in Malen-
kov's accusations that Beria was a traitor. Such examples are re-
peated with each turn of the Soviet line.

The fact that the ultimate aims of the Guatemalan PGT are sub-
ordinated to the long-range Soviet aim of a Communist world has a
direct effect on its immediate aims and tactics. The Guatemalan PGT
acts within a global not a local Guatemalan political context. It thus
conceives of the ultimate triumph of communism in Guatemala as part
of a successful worldwide advance of the Communist forces and, as a
disciplined battalion in the advance of an army, refrains from charg-
ing ahead blindly and adjusts its tactics and objectives to support the
main effort, so the PGT subordinates its local effort to seize control of
(he Guatemalan Government to the wider consideration of assisting
in the reduction of the stronghold of free nations grouped around the
United States.

All of this is obscured and glossed over in the catch phrases of the
Communist lexicon, but reflection bares the essential purposes of the
PGT. On the international plane, the party has consistently put the
"Peace" campaign as the central and orienting point of its activities,
and the "Peace campaign" is defined as "struggling against the im-
perialist warmongers" and "preventing the chaining of small nations
and their resources to the imperialist war chariot." This is to say that
the central point of the Communist program is to fight against the
United States and to prevent small nations, like Guatemala, from
collaborating effectively in the United States-led struggle against
Soviet Communist advances. The PGT thus adopts as its primary

«07858— 64-

65

orientation that the defeat or isolation of the United States is the first
prerequisite of triumph of communism in Guatemahi as elsewhere.

(Newspapermen and other observers of the Guatemalan scene have
often given evidence of examining the "Communist" problem on a
local rather than international plane. Their eyes frequently seem di-
rected principally at the degree that the Guatemalan Communists
exercise control of the Government and overlook the wider implica-
tions that this control is not necessarily the objective of communism
at this phase but an instrument to serve the broader purposes of
Communist advance.)

2. The Domestic Program : Within the framework of advancing in-
ternational communism, the PGT has adopted a program in Guate-
malan domestic affairs evidently calculated to disrupt the social and
political structure and sever the links betw^een Guatemala and the
United Statas.

The party program, adopted at the 1952 Congress, is entitled El
C amino Guatemalteco, the "Guatemalan Way." It is in its currently
applicable portions summarized in a report by Fortuny, approved by
the Central Committee at its plenary session May 16-17, 1953, consist-
ing of seven points. These, in the stated order of importance are:

1. The application of agrarian reform must be carried on.

2. Intensify the fight against foreign monopolies and increase the
anti-imperialist sentiment of our i:»eop]e, especially the United Fruit
Company, the International Kaihvays of Central America, and the
Empresa Electrica power and light company.

3. Denounce with greater insistence the counter revolutionary ac-
tivities of feudal imperialist reaction.

4. Give increasing support to progi-essive measiires undertaken by
the democratic Government of President Arbenz, such as the high-
way to the Atlantic which will allow Guatemala, by competing with
the U.S.-owned lECA Railroad, to free itself from monopolistic
exploitation.

5. Improve the living conditions of the masses, especially by strug-
gling for a minimum daily rural wage of 80 cents and urban wage
of $1.25.

6. Cultivate and strengthen organic unity and united action in the
working class, by fighting against diversionism in labor organization.

7. Tighten the alliance between the workers and i^easants.

In its totality this program can be seen as a shrewd adaptation of
current Guatemalan conditions to the requirement of the long-range
objective of Communist world domination and the intermediate aim
of separating Guatemala from the Western powers. The PGT's
party literature and the speeches of its leaders continually emphasize
that conditions are not ripe for the establishment of the "dictator-

ship of the proletariat," that is, the seizure of power by the Com-
munists: Guatemala must first liquidate its "feudal" agricultural
social system and pass through "bourgeois revolution" and "capitalist"
phases before this evolution can take place. In party doctrine, the
function of the agrarian reform is to accelerate these social changes
and thus pave the way for the long-run triumph of communism.
But, in the short run, the agrarian reform serves as a punitive
weapon against all the propertied elements, whose interests and tradi-
tions have historically been an important factor serving to cement
Guatemala into the Western World. More directly, the PGT seeks
to break down the Guatemalan-Western relationship by concentra-
tion on the fight against the economic interests of the United States
in Guatemala ("foreign monopolies") and on support to the construc-
tion of competing Guatemalan "national" enterprises.

Nonetheless, while the party is not prepared to initiate the repres-
sive aspects of the "dictatorship of the proletariat," it is clear that the
party is achieving effective control of the Guatemalan political organ-
izations as a means of carrying out its program. If it is completely
successful in this, it will be the first time that a Communist-controlled
state is established outside the Soviet sphere.

Sec/ion III
THE LEVERS OF POWER

A. THE PRINCIPLES OF INDIRECT CONTROL AND THE
NATIONAL FRONT

With its Political Committee as the nerve center, the PGT exerts
dominant influence on the key policies of the present Guatemalan
Government through a system of indirect control of, or influence on,
determining units of the national political organism. The system
employed may be likened to the works of a watch, with the PGT
Political Committee as the mainspring, the "mass" organizations as
the first gears, and the administration parties and some Govern-
ment agencies as the secondary gears, the whole so meshed together
than an impulse from the center is smoothly transmitted to distant
entities which have no apparent connection with the party. Thus, for
example, the Political Committee (the mainspring) might evolve a
new aspect to its agrarian reform policy; this impulse would first
be transmitted to the Communist leadership of the National Labor
Federation, CGTG (the first gear) ; and it would finally go forward
to those local and departmental Agrarian Committees (the secondary
gears) which are under CGTG domination. Simultaneously the im-
pulse would go from the Political Committer to PGT members in key

66

67

positions on the policymaking "National Democratic Front" and in
the National Agrarian Department and thence to the "vvhole of the
Department's machinery. This system of intermeshing gears has the
advantage of providing a machinery with which the nnmerically small
Communist leadership can effectively manipulate various organiza-
tions, many of whose members are not conscious of being used for
Communist purposes.

The PGT has built up this machinery by a complex campaign of
maintaining close relationship with the administration; working
harder than any other Guatemalan entity; infiltrating key Govern-
ment agencies ; establishing an interlocking directorate between the
PGT Central Committee and the nation's labor, women's, youth, and
students' organizations; and achieving a position of preeminence in
the "National Democratic Front" of administration part-ies while
shrewdly working against the consolidation of a non-Communist
"revolutionary" movement.

B. PENETRATION OF THE GOVERNMENT

1. The Favor of the Arhem Admimstration: The good will and
cooperation of President Arbenz and his administration has been the
PGT's main asset and remains so, although the PGT's growth in size
and power is in great part plainly aimed at making it independent of
the existence of a sympathetic Chief Executive. (E.g. now that the
PGT controls the CGTG, it stands for less govermnent "interference"
in union affairs.) President Arbenz" propensity for Communists is
an undisguised fact. The Communist Party came into the open as the
PCG at the beginning of his administration and was entered in the
Civil Registry without regard to the Guatemalan constitutional in-
junction against "political organizations of a foreign or international
character." He brought the Communist leaders into the political
meetings of administration parties which he holds in his office, and
these parties, which he controls, openly supported Communist candi-
dates in the January 1953 congressional elections (Fortuny in the
Department of Guatemala and Pellecer in the Department of Escuint-
la). Fortuny is a leading member of his "kitclien cabinet" and pro-
fessed Communists are employed in important positions in the public
administration. In his March 1953 Annual Message to Congress he
served public notice that he would not suppress communism and in
effect reemphasized this the following month when his Government
withdrew from the Organization of Central American States
(ODECA) in order to sidestep El Salvador's proposal tliat means to
control communism be discussed at its next meeting. In public cere-
monies and on May 1 Labor Day demonstration in 1953. he has puh-
liclv thrown his arms around Communist leaders in the Latin Amer-

68

lean fashion, thereby identifying himself with them in the popular
mind.

In his March 1954 Annual Message to Congress Arbenz referred
to the Communists as "democratic" and "progressive" and said that
to isolate them would be equivalent to the suicide of the revolutionary
movement.

Finally, it is generally known that political parties in Guatemala,
and particularly political newspapers such as the PGT's Tribuna
Popular, cannot be successful without direct or indirect support of
the public treasury, and this could not be given in appreciable measure
without the approval of the Chief Executive.

The President's public speeches and actions indicate him as a left-
ist influenced by Marxist thought and an extreme nationalist, but he
has not defined his personal ideological orientation towards com-
munism. He has not publicly acknowledged aid to the PGT, and his
official position might be defined as one of denying that his Govern-
ment is Communist while simultaneously defending the freedom of
Communists to organize and engage in politics as any other citizens.
He thus, publicly at least, implicitly accepts the Communists as an
authentic domestic political party and not as part of the worldwide
Soviet Communist conspiracy.

2. Penetration of Government Agencies: Shielded by the favor of
the Chief Executive, the Communists have infiltrated their members
and supported their sympathizers in key positions in the public admin-
istration, with special concentration on the agrarian reform machin-
ery, the Government information and propaganda agencies, the
wealthy social security system, and public education institutions.

The Cabinet of President Arbenz, as his administration from time
to time points out in refutation of charges that it is "Communist,"
does not and has never contained a known member of the Communist
Party. However, this statement is somewhat deceptive, for the Guate-
malan Cabinet is more of an executive than a policy-forming body.
In policy matters, the President consults regularly with the "National
Democratic Front" of administration parties and labor organizations,
on which PGT members hold 4 seats, and on which there are at least
4 Communist sympathizers of record of the 10 members who attended
meetings in early 1954. This "National Democratic Front" has rap-
idly replaced the Cabinet as a focal point of policy formulation.

The President also maintains contact with a number of personal
advisers, a sort of "kitchen cabinet," in which Fortuny is probably
the most prominent individual. Thus, for instance, when the Agrarian
Reform Bill was submitted to the Cabinet prior to transmission to
Congress in May 1952, it had already been drawn up by the President

69

and his advisers, and the Cabinet merely played the role of a consulta-
tive body.

Below the level of the Cabinet the area of heaviest Communist in-
filtration is perhaps the governmental machinery established to carry
out the agrarian reform, which the PGT sets as its first task in
domestic affairs. Despite the fact that only a small fraction of the
names of the PGT members have been made public, a significant num-
ber of the employees of the National Agrarian Department {^Departe-
iiiento Agrario Nacional) appear among them. The Department is
headed by Maj. Alfonso Martinez Estevez, an opportunist non-Com-
munist who was President Arbenz' private secretary until July 1,
1952 ; but Waldemar Barrios Klee, the head of the Lands Section, who
acts as Chief when Major Martinez is absent, is a PGT member. The
Secretary General of this Department, through whom all papers are
funneled, is Sra. Maria Jerez de Fortuny, the latest of Sr. Fortuny's
3 wives. Of a score of inspectors of the National Agrarian Depart-
ment, Y are publicly registered PGT members and at least 7 others
have been identified as Communists. In addition, another dozen
of the 350-odd National Agrarian Department employees are known
members of PGT. A Guatemalan newspaper, the independent El
Espectador of September 9, 1953, made the charge that "85 percent"
of all departmental employees adhered to the PGT, a statement which
is possibly an exaggeration but indicative of the Communist colora-
tion that the Department has quickly taken on since its establishment
in July 1952.

The leverage of the PGT over the agrarian reform is further en-
hanced by the terms of the Agrarian Reform Law of June 17, 1952, as
amended. In addition to the National Agrarian Department, the
law establishes local Agrarian Committees, which pass in the first
instance on petitions for the expropriation and distribution of land;
departmental Agrarian Commissions, which are the first reviewing
authority ; and a National Agrarian Council, which is the final court
of appeal under the President. The law, as amended, provided that
60 percent of the personnel on local Agrarian Committees should be
composed of representatives of the CGTG or CNCG; that 1 of the
3 members of the departmental Agrarian Committee should repre-
sent the CGTG and another the CNCG ; and that 1 of the 9 mem-
bers of the National Agrarian Council ^ should represent the CGTG
and 2 others the CNCG. As the CGTG is controlled by the PGT
(its representative on the National Agrarian Council is Jose Luis
Ramos, the Secretary of the PGT in charge of the party's Peasant
Commission) and the CNCG is under Communist influence, the PGT

' The General Association of ARricultiirists (AGA), a laudowneis' organization,
has not appointed the ropreHeutatlve to which It is iPKiilly entitled. There are
thus in reality only eight nieniliers of tlie Council.

70

Political Conmiittee has considerable means of directing the course of
and pace of the agrarian reform.

Despite the paucity of public documentation on PGT members,
avowed Communists are perceptible in a number of Government posts
outside of the agrarian reform machinery. Thus, for instance, Edel-
berto Torres, Sr., the Nicaraguan Communist, is Chief of the publica-
tions house of the Ministry of Public Education, and communism is
so influential among the teachers that Rafael Tischler, a registered
PGT member who visited the Soviet Union in 1953, is Secretary Gen-
eral of the national teachers' union, the STEG. In the Ministry of
Communications, Carlos Alvarado Jerez is Chief of the Direccion
General de Radiodifusion and director of the national radio station
TGW. Under the Ministry of Economy and Labor, Hugo Barrios
Klee, a PGT member and brother of Waldemar Barrios Klee of the
National Agrarian Department, is Deputy Inspector General of Labor,
and Humberto Pineda, Labor Inspector in Ciulapa, Department of
Santa Rosa, has also been identified as a PGT member.

Persons whose PGT membership has not been publicly avowed but
who are fully Communist in their unstinting public praise of party
ideals and the Soviet Union also occupy influential Government posi-
tions. Raul Leiva, a writer and poet who has been a leading Com-
munist propagandist, is Chief of the Press Section of the President's
Information Office {Secretario de Publicidad y Propaganda) and
heads the Office when his Chief is absent. Otto Raul Gonzalez, a
leading young Guatemalan poet, eulogist of conditions in Eastern
Europe and participant in Communist causes, is now the representa-
tive of the Directorate General of Statistics on the National Agrarian
Council, and has been a member of both the President's and the
National Agrarian Department's Information Offices.

The Guatemalan Institute of Social Security (IGSS) appears to be
a stronghold of the "nonparty" Communists who support the PGT
program but are not always organizationally at peace with Fortuny's
dominant clique in the PGT. The Manager of the IGSS is Solorzano,
whose continuing Communist ideology, reported expulsion from the
Mexican Communist Party, and role in the crystallization of com-
munism in Guatemala, are described above. The personnel includes
a number of Communist personalities, such as Sra. Laura Mallol de
Bermudez, a Chilean, who formerly taught in the IGSS School of
Social Service and is now in the maternity service.

3. The PGT Pofiition in Congress : In the legislative branch of the
Guatemalan Government, the PGT has only 4 of the 56 deputies
in the unicameral Congress, but these are in key positions. The
4 are Gutierrez and Jose Alberto Cardoza, both representing the
Department of Guatemala, Cesar Montenegro Paniagua, represent-
ing tlie Department of Suchiloix'qnez, and Carlos Manuel Pellecer,

71

representing the Department of Escuintla. Gutierrez is First Secre-
tary of Congress (1954-55) and Chairman of Congress' Special Com-
mittee on Agrarian Reform (1952-54). Jose Alberto Cardoza has
been chairman of the Special Committee on Revision of the Labor
Code (1952-54). Moreover, Pellecer during the 1953-54 sessions was
perhaps the most vociferous administration supporter and organizer
on the floor.

C. MANIPULATION OF THE ADMINISTRATION POLITICAL PARTIES

1. The ^^National Democratic Fronf : In the field of organized party
politics, the Political Committee of the PGT exerts its indirect influ-
ence through the F rente Democrdtico Nacional (the "National Demo-
cratic Front") , which is an alliance of the parties and labor groups
supporting the Arbenz administration : The Partido Accidn Revolu-
cionaria (PAR), the Partido de la Revolucion Guatemalteca (PRG),
the Partido Renovacion Nacional (RN), the Communist Partido
Guatemalteco del Trabajo (PGT) itself, and the CGTG and CNCG.
The Front holds 51 of the 56 seats in the Guatemalan Congress, and
virtually all Government jobs are filled with members of one or other
of the parties.

The PGT effectively controls the personnel of the Front's managing
body, which meets with President Arbenz. In a typical meeting with
the President in early 1954, the representatives were: for the PGT,
Fortuny and Guerra Borges; for the CGTG, Gutierrez and Max
Salazar, both PGT members; for the CNCG, Leonardo Castillo Flores,
1953 visitor to Moscow and Oscar Bautista; for the PAR, Julio
Estrada de la Hoz, Communist-line intellectual and Marco Antonio
Franco, a 1953 visitor to the Soviet orbit ; and for the PRG, Augusto
Charnaud MacDonald, longtime political collaborator with the Com-
munists, and Alfonso Solorzano, the "nonparty" Communist manager
of the IGSS. (The two RN seats at this period were vacant due to
a party split.)

In the field of ideology and party programs also, tlie PGT has
established its ascendancy in the Front. The other parties, although
labeling themselves "revolutionary," have found themselves since the
1944 revolution handicapped by the fact that they produced no au-
thentic native Guatemalan revolutionary ideology and had embarked
on a period of social revolution without any navigational aids. In
their early stage of development (section I) their deficiency in this
sphere was supplied first by returning Conmiunist personalities, such
as Solorzano and Alvarado Fuentes, and later by crypto-Communists,
such as Fortuny when he was Secretary General of tlie PAR. These
advisers operated at that time within the administration parties, but
with the exodus of the Communist groups of Gutierrez and Fortuny in

72

1949 and 1950 these parties became increasingly reliant for ideological
guidance on the Connnunist movement on the outside. At first the
older administration parties tried to form alliances omitting the new
Communist groups, but they failed to develop a non-Communist revo-
lutionary ideology as cement, and the alliances one by one fell of their
internal dissensions. In October 1952 the Communist Party formally
entered the "Democratic Electoral Front" for the congressional elec-
tions of January 1953, and since then the party programs of the PAR,
PRG. and RN have increasingly become replicas of the current line of
the PGT Political Committee. They not only embody the Communist
concepts of such programs as the agrarian reform, but are sprinkled
with such terminology as the "struggle for peace," "foreign imperial-
ists," "monopolist exploiters," etc.

The ascendancy of Communist ideology in the "National Democratic
Front" is attributable not only to the void left by the failure of a non-
Comnumist ideology to evolve, but also to an active factor, the infiltra-
tion into the PAR, PRG, and RN leadership of Communist sympa-
thizers, some of whom may be secret members of the PGT.

The PAR is currently headed by Julio Estrada de la Hoz as Secre-
tary General. His Connnunist orientation has repeatedly been shown
by such acts as his signing, in June 1952, a message of solidarity with
the North Korean Government charging that bacteriological warfare
had been used in Korea.

The PRG is headed by Augusto Charnaud MacDonald as Secre-
tary General. Currently the Minister of the Interior, he is a shrewd
non-Communist politician Avho has, nonetheless, collaborated closely
with the Comunists. On his Political Committee he has Solorzano,
Abel Cuenca, and Roberto Alvarado Fuentes, all of whom are closely
identified with promoting Communist objectives.

The RN is currently split, but its dominant figure over the past 3
years has been Jaime Diaz Rozzotto as Secretary General. He is also
Secretary General of President Arbenz' Executive Office (Secretario
General de la Presidencia) . He was quoted in the Guatemalan press
as stating on July 31, 1953, at a i-ally that the Korean Armistice "rep-
resented another step toward the achievement of a Socialist world,"
but he maintains, without definition of what he means, that he is "not
a Communist."

2. The ''Divide and Rule'' Tactic: Wliile the PGT thus exercises
considerable influence over the "National Democratic Front" parties
through ideology and sympathetic leaders, its party literature and its
record give a strong indication that Fortuny and his colleagues are
conscious that the rank and file of the PAR, the PRG, and the RN are
not Communists and that the creation of a single non-Communist
administration party might result in a "petty bourgeois" party which

73

the PGT could not control. They have therefore tried to keep the
other forces of the "National Democratic Front" divided so that
their support would be necessary to any faction within it. From 1944
until 1952 the issue of communism itself was an important factor in
keeping the parties divided as each party had a "pro-Communist" and
a "non-Communist" wing. The struggle of these two wings domi-
nated the internal affairs of the PAR and the RN, with the most pro-
Communist faction gradually winning in both. In 1951, as part of
this series of factional fights, Charnaud MacDonald withdrew from
the PAR in protest against the reelection of Alvarado Fuentes as
Secretary General and founded the Socialist Party.

A new form of organizational conflict arose on June 10, 1952, when
Charnaud MacDonald, as Secretary General of the Socialist Party,
and Alvarado Fuentes, Secretary General of the PAR, announced
the fusion of their parties into the PRG, which was to be the "single"
revolutionary party. They invited the RN, the F rente Pofnlar Liher-
tador (FPL) and the Partido Integridad Nacional (PIN), but not
the Communist PCG of the era, to join them, and all did so in short
order. Fortuny apparently quickly saw that the PRG as the "single,"
non-Communist administration party might overshadow his PCG,
and on July 3 he launched an attack on it in the PCG newspaper
Octuhre^ charging that the party represented the small bourgeoisie
and that the "workers' leaders" (i. e. Alvarado Fuentes and Solorzano
and Cuenca who had joined him) were guilty of "rightist deviation."
This attack, coupled with strong personal conflicts within the PRG,
resulted in the withdrawal of the PAR and the RN later in July 1932.

Following the destruction of the PRG as the "single" administra-
tion party, the PAR was in the ascendancy in the latter half of 1952
and the early months of 1953. It was the principal victor in the
January 1953 congressional elections and had come into close align-
ment with the CNCG, the numerically strong agricultural workers'
and small farmers' federation, which with Communist aid had been
weaned from Charnaud MacDonald and the PRG. With the PAR
thus threatening to become a dominant and unmanageable "non-Com-
munist" administration party, Fortuny and the PGT leadership
began to give signs that they were seeking to undermine the PAR.
The party was rocked by continual scandals in 1953, and by the spring
of 1954 it had all but lost its opportunity to stand independently of
the Communists.

The PGT policy thus gives every evidence of being intended to
divide and rule the "National Democratic Front." It is, in short, a
part of the PGT's struggle to increase its influence at the expense of its
allies, but this struggle in practical politics has yet given no signs of
transforming itself into an ideological conflict between Comnmnists
and non-Communists.

74

D. CONTROL AND INFLUENCE IN THE LABOR MOVEMENT

1. The Significance of Organized Workers in Guatemala: The or-
ganized labor movement in Guatemala in 1954 has become the Com-
munist PGT's most important single instrument for shaping political
developments of the country. The importance of organized labor in
industry, commerce, and agriculture is reflected in the fact that the
Administrative Department of Labor of the Guatemalan Ministry of
Economy and Labor reported in April 1953 that there were 100,000
registered union members in the C on feder anion General de Trabaja-
dores de Guatemala (CGTG) and the Confederacion Nacional
Campesino de Guatemala (CNCG). This figure compares with a
total vote of about 415,000 in the presidential election in 1950 and
underscores an important factor in Guatemalan politics : that a politi-
cal party can readily succeed in the present atmosphere if it is sup-
ported by organized labor.

Organized labor itself claims an even greater number of adherents.
The CGTG in August 1953 claimed a membership of 104,000 and the
CNCG in 1952 claimed 215,000 members, a total for both of 319,000
or a number equivalent to three-quarters of the 1950 vote. The dis-
crepancy between the Administrative Department of Labor's figure of
100,000 and the two federations' claim of 319,000 is doubtless mainly
accounted for by the latter's gross exaggeration, but a subsidiary factor
is that there is a time lag between the organization of unions and feder-
ations and their registration. There are thus most probably more than
100,000 unionized urban and rural workers in Guatemala, though only
a small proportion of that ninnber could be considered as active in
union affairs.

The labor movement has been primarily concerned with politics
rather than pure labor matters since its inception in a modern form
in 1944. To a large extent this was inevitable, both because no labor
organization of any complexion had much chance of establishing
itself without collaborating closely with the administration and be-
cause Communists and Communist sympathizers proved to be the only
labor organizers prepared to set a new labor movement on its feet. By
1953 the CGTG and CNCG had become a key factor in politics:
their representatives were in the majority on the local and depart-
mental Agrarian Committees under the terms of the Agrarian Reform
Law; Guillermo Ovando Arriola, the CNCG Secretary for Agrarian
Affairs, was president of Congress ; and 3 CGTG and 3 CNCG officers ^
and several members of each organization were deputies in Congi'ess.

' GutifTrez, Ppllecor, and C^sar MoiitoneKro PanlfiKua of the CGTG and Ovando
Arriobi, Alfonso PortUlo, and .Tosf Einosto iJiufur Fuentes of the ('NCO. The
first 3 are I'GT doimties, the Inst 3 PAK rtopntles.

75

2. Co7nmu7iist Control of the Confederacion General de Trabaja-
dores de Guatemala: The CGTG, founded in October 1951, is Guate-
mala's national labor federation, and its leadership is to all intents
and purposes completely under the control of the PGT Political Com-
mittee. With the exception of a very few independent local unions,
it represents all organized industrial, transportation, and commercial
labor and has a considerable number of agricultural workers' feder-
ations, including the union of the workers at the United Fruit Com-
pany plantations. The CGTG affiliation with the WFTU and Vi-
cente Lombardo Toledano's CTAL were accepted in 195o.

The key positions in the CGTG are all held by PGT members.
Gutierrez, a member of the PGT Political Committee and the liead of
the PGT Central Committee's Labor Union Commissio?i, is its Secre-
tary General. Jose Alberto Cardoza, also of the PGT Political Com-
mittee is First Vice Secretary General. Pellecer, another PGT Politi-
cal Committee member, is the most active of the Secretaries for Labor
Disputes. Virgilio Guerra, of the Political Committee, is CGTG
Secretary for Organization. Carlos Manuel Pellecer of the Political
Committee is the leading Secretary for Labor Disputes. Maximiliano
Salazar Garcia, listed as a member in the PGT's December 1952 peti-
tion for registration, is Secretary for Rural Workers Relations. An-
tonio Ovando Sanchez, the Communist who went to Moscow in the
early 1930's, was a leading spirit of the Escuela Claridad^ Commu-
nist labor school after the 1944 revolution, and now another PGT
member listed on the party's registration petition is Secretary for
Laws and Resolution. Miguel Marmol, the Salvadoran Communist
of the Escuela Claridad group, is from time to time reported in the
press at CGTG headquarters, where he may be continuing the advisory
function which he undertook for the CTG in 1944.

3. Communist Influence on the Confederacion Nacional Campesina
de Guatemala: The PGT exerts a strong ideological influence rather
than organizational control over the CNCG, only one of whose present
officers is luiblicly known to be a member of the PGT.^ The CNCG,
founded in June 1951, is the national federation of cam.pesina organ-
izations, that is, organizations of hired farm workers, of small tenant
farmei's, and of small farmers, most of whom in Guatemala are In-
dians. Among farm laborers its activities overlap with those of the
CGTG which is currently expanding its agricultural affiliates in
connection with the Agrai-ian Reform Law. This has resulted in
some organizational conflict and jealousies, none of which, however,
have extended into the sphere of ideology. The CNCG's orientation
has remained in harmony with the PGT Political Committee's pro-
gram and, in October 1953, the CNCG became affiliated with the

HtTto Del in Castro, mcmlicr of tlic CX(X3 OoiisiiUatiVH Council.

76

WFTU and the CTAL, the labor Communist international organi-
zations.

A good deal of the CNCG's Communist ideological orientation
stems from the Secretary General, Leonardo Castillo Flores, a 36-
year-old' ladino schoolteacher. Although not a PGT member as
far as is known, he is a vice president of the National Peace Com-
mittee; was appointed a delegate to the abortive Continental Peace
Congress in Montevideo in 1952 and a delegate to the WFTU's Third
World Congress of Trade Unions in Vienna in October 1953 ; and
went to the Soviet Union the following month. In July 1952 when
Fortuny attacked leaders of the PRG as "deviationists," he specifically
excepted Castillo Flores, and the latter soon thereafter withdrew his
support from the PRG and Charnaud MacDonald, with whom the
CNCG had formerly been closely politically allied. He pledged to
devote himself entirely to support the "alliance of the workers and
peasants," and was followed by Clodoveo Torres Moss and Oscar
Bautista of the CNCG Executive Committee, and with their sup-
port succeeded in October 1952 in expelling Amor Velasco de Leon,
the Secretary of Organization and number-two man of the CNCG, a
left-winger who nonetheless resisted the organization's moves toward
the PGT orbit. Despite a Communist tint to his political thinking,
however, Castillo Flores at times has been in conflict with the PGT
leadership.

At present, the CNCG is closely affiliated with the left wing of the
PAR and the leaderships of the two organizations are interlocked.
Castillo Flores is a member of the PAR Political Committee. Ovando
Arriola, the ex-president of Congress (1953-54), is concurrently the
CNCG's Secretary for Agrarian Affairs and the PAR's Secretary for
Organization. Marco Antonio Soto is the CNCG's Secretary for
Agricultural Affairs and Credit and the PAR's Secretary for Peasant
Affairs.

E. THE OTHER "MASS ORGANIZATIONS"

1. The Role of the '■^Mass Organizations^': Around the solid core
of the PGT and its position in the Government, the political parties
and the labor unions, the PGT Political Committee has organized a
periphery of other "mass organizations" consisting of intellectuals,
youth, students', and women's groups. The principal ones are the
Comite Nacional de la Paz (The National Peace Committee), the
Aliama de la Juventud Democrdtica de Guatemala (AJDG), the
Frente Unlversitario Democrdtica (FUD), the Alianza Femenina
Guatefnalteca (AFG), the Confederacion de Estudiantes de Post Pri-
maria (CEP), and the Saker-Ti group of young intellectuals and
writers.

•liorn on November 25, 1017.

77

These organizations serve multiple purposes for the PGT which
dominates each one of them. For immediate use, they constitute a
propaganda apparatus for disseminating the party line, sometimes
tailored to the background of the membership, over a wider area than
is covered by the other organizations xinder PGT guidance. At the
same time, they are useful in adding their voices to those of labor
organizations and political parties to provide the semblance of "popu-
lar support" for a PGT project, such as a protest against American
"intervention" in Guatemalan affairs or a "Peace" petition. For use
in the longer pull, these organizations provide an educational appa-
ratus for training future party members and leaders. They provide
the stage on which fledgling leftist extremists can be indoctrinated,
tested, and observed. Finally, by providing trips to numerous "Con-
gresses" in Europe and elsewhere they provide ready contacts between
the local Communist movement and the main currents of international
communism. The details of the financing of these trips is one of the
obscurities of Guatemalan Communist activities, but the evidence in-
dicates in outline that collections from the membership are augmented
by funds or tickets supplied by the parent organizations in Europe.

These Guatemalan "mass" organizations all have certain common
characteristics. They claim to be "nonpartisan" organizations rep-
resenting people without discrimination as to class, religion, or political
belief. On these grounds^ they take in a good many non-Communist
opportunists in the administration's "revolutionary" movement who
find the "mass organizations" an acceptable manner of recording
leftist zeal. They also attract a fringe of the duped, the eccentric,
and the old-fashioned pacifists, and they have proved on a number of
occasions not to be above using non-Communist names without per-
mission.

They have another characteristic in common in that they virtually
always contain a PGT member, under the discipline of the Political
Committee, in a key position, usually as Secretary General or Secre-
tary for Organization.

Most of the "mass organizations," moreover, share the characteristic
of affiliation to a recognized international Communist organization,
paralleling the CGTG's affiliation to the WFTU.

2. The Comite Nacional de la Paz: Guatemala's National Peace
Committee, an affiliate of the World Congress of Peace, was established
in its present form in Guatemala in 1949 ^ at a meeting presided over
by Fortuny after he, Gutierrez and Solorzano attended the First
World Congress of the Partisans of Peace. At that meeting Jaime

' An earlier "Committee for Peace and Democracy" was founded in September
1948 in the presence of Roberto Moreno, reportedly sent by Vicente Lombardo
Toledano.

78

Diaz Rozzotto, the present Secretary General of the President's Exec-
utive Office, was elected as the first Secretary General.

The present leadership of the National Peace Committee, elected on
June 14, 1952, illustrates the PGT's technique of control. The presi-
dent is Antonio Cruz Franco, a leftist lawyer who was briefly on the
Supreme Court in 1946, but the Secretary General is Mario Silva
Jonama, the PGT Secretary for Education, who was in the Soviet
Union in 1952. The vice presidents are Luis Cardoza y Aragon, a
leading Communist-line Guatemalan poet and critic who served as
Minister to Moscow in 1945 ; Gutierrez, the PGT member who is Secre-
tary General of the CGTG; Maj. Marco Antonio Franco Chac6n,
a leftist army officer, PAR deputy, and current president of Congress
who went to Budapest in 1953 ; Sra. Elena de Barrios Klee, princi-
pal of the "Belen" Government Girls' Scliool wb.ere Communist-line
meetings are held and wife of Waldemar Barrios Klee, PGT member
and Chief of the Lands Section of the National Agrarian Department.

The other officers of the National Peace Committee are Secretary
for Organization, Marco Antonio Blanco, the PGT member who is
an inspector of the National Agrarian Department; Secretary for
Propaganda, Oscar Edmundo Pahna, a member of the PGT Central
Committee, officer of the teachers' union STEG, and contributor in
September 1953 of a firsthand account of Soviet "progress" to the
PGT's Trihuna Popular; Secretary for Press, Raul Leiva, head of the
Press Section of the President's Information Office; Secretary for
Finance, Sra. Atala Valenzuela, a member listed by the PGT in its
1952 petition for registration; Secretary for Liaison (Relations),
Carlos Alvarado Jerez, the Chief of the Directorate General of Radio
Broadcasting of the Ministry of Communications who is an avowed
Communist; and Secretary for Minutes, Julio Ernesto Juarez.

The National Peace Committee has subsidiary committees in the
departments and municipalities of the Republic (the president of the
unit in the Department of Guatemala is Guillermo Ovando Arriola,
the ex-president of Congress) and conducts a rather intensive activity
which is reenforced by the CGTG, the CNCG, the administration
political parties, and the other "mass" organizations. It circulates
petitions for peace, holds local and national peace congresses, releases
statements on world events which receive prominent play in the leftist
and Government press, and publishes a leaflet-like periodical Por la
Paz edited by Otto Raiil Gonzalez.

In 1952 the Committee sponsored showings of the film, Bacterio-
logical Warfare in Korea, purporting to prove that the United States
employed germ warfare during the Korean hostilities. Several of the
showings were in Government schools.

On September 19, 1953, the National Peace Committee initiated a
"Campaign for Negotiations" in response to the Budapest World

79

Peace Council's appeal for big power negotiations on outstanding
international questions. It has set itself a quota of 125,000 signatures
on a petition for such negotiations, a statistic which illuminates its
present capacities.

The National Peace Committee has also sponsored delegations to
the various congresses of the Soviet-dominated peace movement
notably tlie voyages of Roberto Alvarado Fuentes, at the time presi-
dent of Congress, to the 1951 Vienna Peace Conference; of Mario
Silva Jonama and Jose Alberto Cardoza to the preparatory and
full-dress Peking Asiatic and Pacific Peace Conferences in June and
September 1952; and of Lt. Col. Carlos Paz Tejada, ex-Chief of the
Armed Forces (1949) ; Maj. Mario Antonio Franco Chacon, the PAE
deputy, and Oscar Edmundo Palma of the PGT, to the Budapest
meeting of the World Council for Peace in June 1953. Lieutenant
Colonel Paz Tejada and Major Franco were elected at the World
Peace Council at the last of these meetings.

3. The Alianza de la Juventud Democratica de Guatemala: The
AJDG, founded on December 21, 1947, is the Guatemalan affiliate of
the international Communist World Federation of Democratic Youth
(WFDY) and may be considered the training ground for youth, some
of whom may later be graduated to membership in the PGT.

The leading figure in tlie AJDG for some years lias been Iluberto
Alvarado, a 26-year-old member of the PGT's Central Committee
and chief of that committee's Youth Commission. He has been several
times Secretary General of AJDG (once in 1961) and still appears
to guide its policies. In 1952-54 the Secretary General is Edelberto
Torres Rivas, who attended the Bucharest Youth Festival and went to
the U. S. S. R. in 1953. During his absence the Secretary Generalship
passed to Bernado Lemus, a registered Communist.

Another leading member of the AJDG is Hugo Barrios Klce, Dep-
uty Inspector (ieneral of Labor, a P(iT member, a delegate to the
1951 Berlin Youth Festival, and brother of Waldemar Barrios Klee,
Chief of the Lands Section of the National Agrarian Department.

Statistics on the membership of AJDG have not recently been
publicized but its activities have been extensive. Newspapers report
departmental and local youth congresses and in February 1953 the
AJDG was a principal sponsor of the "National Conference on the
Rights of Youth." It is now instrumental in organizing a proposed
"Festival of Friendship of the Youth of Central America and Carib-
bean," scheduled for December 1954. It also publishes a monthly
review headed Alianza.

The AJDG sent delegations to the Berlin Youth Festival in 1950
(headed by Huberto Alvarado), to the Bucharest Youth Festival in
July 1953, and the Warsaw Students' Conference in August 1953.

80

I'he delegations to the 1953 gatherings in the Soviet orbit went on, in
many cases, to Moscow and toured the U. S. S. R.

4. The F rente Universitario Democratica: The FUD was founded
on January 22, 1952, by a fusion of the Accion Democratica Uidversi-
taria (ADU) and the Vanguardia Universitaria (VU). It is an af-
filiate or candidate for affiliation of the Communist International
Students' Union (ISU) in Prague and represents the PGT's effort
to keep alive in the University at San Carlos, Guatemala's national uni-
versity, the Marxist current which was so influential in the crystalliza-
tion of an organized political party. It is, however, in a minority posi-
tion in the student body, overshadowed by the moderate Asooiacion
de Estudiantes Universitarios (AEU) and rivaled by the more im-
portant Commits de Estudiantes Universitarios Anticomunistas
(CEUA), the leading student anti-Communist organization.

The present Secretary General of the FUD is Ricardo Ramirez,
who attended the Defense of the Rights of Youth Congress in Vienna
in 1953. He succeeded Cesar Augusto Cazali Avila, member of the
National Agrarian Council, Secretary for Organization of the union of
the National Agrarian Department's employees, and almost certainly
a member of the PGT. He attended the ISU meeting in Bucharest in
tlie summer of 1952 and later toured several of the "People's Democ-
racies" of Eastern Europe. He has written of his experiences there
for the PGT Tribuna Popular and his signed statements on behalf of
the FUD never deviate from the PGT line.

The FUD Secretary for Organization is Julio Rene Estevez, who
in the fall of 1953 visited the U. S. S. R. and Communist China after
attending the Tliird World Congress of Students in Warsaw in
August.

Apart from the meeting in Bucharest which Cazali attended, the
FUD has sent delegations to the 1953 World Youth Festival in Bucha-
rest and the subsequent Students' Conference in Warsaw. Several of
the delegates went on to the U. S. S. R- and some to Communist China.
In Guatemala it publishes a monthly review, Nuestra Lucha, which
adheres to the Communist line.

5. The Alianza Femenina Guatemalteca: The AFG founded in
1947 is the Guatemalan affiliate of the Communist International Fed-
eration of Democratic Women (IFDW) and is closely connected with
the PGT. One of the founding members is Sra. Maria Vilanova de
Arbenz, wife of the President.

The current Secretary General is Sra. Dora Franco y Franco, who
has been active in Communist-line causes to the extent of travel-
ing to European Connnunist-front congresses,^ and who is almost
certainly a member of the PGT. Another leading figure in the AFG

' DuriiiK Kt'vcral iiioiitlis in uiid-lDn;?, Sr;i. de Urnitia, Vice Secretary Gen-
eral, acted as Kecretar.v General for niiexiilainod rea.soiia.

807858—04

81

is Sra. Irma Chavez de Alvarado, the Secretary for Organization,
who is also the head of the Women's Commission of the PGT. She is
the wife of Bernardo Alvarado Monzon, the PGT Secretary for Or-
ganization. Sra. Maria Jerez de Fortuny, wife of the PGT Secre-
tary General, herself Secretary General of the National Agrarian
Department, is one of the AFG's counsellors. Tlie Secretary for
Propaganda of the AFG is Sra. Elsa Castefieda de Guerra liorges,
the wife of Alfredo Guerra Borges, Secretary of the PGT temporarily
in charge of propaganda.

The AFG was particularly active in promoting the Communist
campaign in 1962 to "save" the Rosenbergs, the convicted atomic spies
eventually executed in the United States. The organization's monthly
magazine, Mujeres^ follows the Communist line.

The AFG held its first National Congress November 26-28, 1953,
and it was addressed by Sra. de Arbenz.

6. The Oonfederacion de Estudiantes de Post Primaria: The CEP
is a high school students' organization which follows the PGT line
closely and is favorably treated in the PGT publications, giving rise to
a supposition that it is under the party's influence. However, none of
its officers, who are young students, can be identified as PGT members.

7. Gntpo Saher-Ti de Artistas y Escritores Jovenes: The Saker-Ti
(the Dawn) organized in December 1947 is a Communist-controlled
group of young intellectuals in which leading spirits are Huberto
Alvarado of the AJDG and chief of the PGT Cultural Committee's
Youth Committee, and Hugo Barrios Klee. Like otlier "mass organi-
zations," the Saker-Ti seeks to exploit non-Communist liberal senti-
ment, for example, praising the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt,
but in this case their tactics were exposed in an expose by Manuel
Mario Herrera Lopez, the organization's ex-Secretary of Organiza-
tion, who resigned on January 2, 1953, and during the following July
described the Saker-Ti as a Communist front in a series of articles
for La Flora.

SecN'on \W

THE PROSPECTS OF THE GUATEMALAN COMMUNIST

PARTY

A. THE FUTURE OF THE PARTY IN GUATEMALA

1, A Basis for Evaluation: While it is risky to peer into the future
for a glimpse at the probable lines of development of the Connnunist
Party in Guatemala, it is possible to strike a balance sheet of the
wealmesses and strengths of the PGT's position in the spring of 1954,
and, postulating an unchanged international situation and the ab-

82

sence of coup d'etat, arrive at a rough esthnate of its capabilities.
This estimate, spelled out in the succeeding paragraphs, indicates a
probability of further increase of Communist power in Guatemala.

2. Weaknesses of the PGT Position: Despite the growth of the
PGT as an organized party since President Arbenz came into office
in 1951 and its controlling influence on Government policy, the ad-
ministration parties and labor and "mass organizations," the PGT's
position in the Guatemalan political organism is still subject to some
theoretical weaknesses.

The first weakness of the PGT is the degree of its dependence on
tlie good will of the Guatemalan Government, particularly of the
President, and at least the neutrality of the Guatemalan Armed
Forces. In spite of its considerable strides toward an independent
organization with genuine strength, in over 3 full years since com-
ijig into the open in Arbenz' administration, the PGT could not
operate on its present scale unless it received help from the admin-
istration. The young PGT thus is faced with the danger of severe
restrictions if not extinction of its activities in the event of an un-
favorable change of administration, by revolution or by other means.
This danger is compounded by the fact that the PGT has yet made
no palpable inroads on the Guatemalan Army.

A second weakness of the PGT is its lack of a sufficient Marxist-
indoctrinated following. Despite the growing number of party mem-
bers and the thousands influenced through the political, labor, and
mass organizations, the PGT still appears to lack a wide enough
trained personnel base from which to draw even the small number of
militants necessary to carry out its program efficiently. This is in-
dicated by the fact that the PGT uses the same individuals in a
multiplicity of jobs. Gutierrez, for example, is obliged to be simul-
taneously a party official, head of the labor movement, a deputy in
Congress, and a leader of the Peace movement. This lack of trained
personnel derives not only from the youth of the PGT but also from
conditions in Guatemala which lack any significant tradition of social
revolution.

The third weakness of the PGT, a corollary of the second, is that
it has to face the ever-present danger that the main stream of the
Guatemalan revolution of 194:4: will turn into a purely opportunist
channel and swamp communism. The "non-Connnunist" political
groups supporting the Arevalo and Arbenz administrations have al-
ways had a large content of opportunism characterized by a good
deal of uncomprehending lip service to Communist slogans and much
real concentration on graft and political chicanery. Tlie PGT is in
a minority position where failure to manipulate these anarchical cur-
rents to its advantages might result in its being overcome by them.
PGT leadership, to judge by party writings, is quite conscious of tliis

83

danger. It appears to be the main reason that the PGT has worked
against the consolidation of a single official ^'revolutionary" party,
such as the PKI in Mexico. It is also a reason that the PGT has corn-
batted rival revolutionary doctrines which might attract some sup-
port, such as the Aprista doctrine in the political sphere and Peron's
ATLAS in the labor field.

The fourth weakness of the PGT is the imperfection of its own
internal organization. Its leaders are young and, compared to the
Communist Parties in the industrial countries, inexperienced. There
is the danger of internal dissension and, although it has not yet re-
sulted in a'liiajor purge, there are several hints that there is some basis
for possible future contention. Fortuny has stated publicly that there
was a purge at the clandestine First Party Congress in 1949 but he did
not reveal the grounds for it. From 1950 until early 1952 Fortuny
and Gutierrez evidently pursued the same objective but with different
tactical emphases, the former standing for an open, labeled Com-
munist Party and the latter for a Communist Party under another
name (the PEOG) pending further training and indoctrination.
This difference was resolved by a compromise: Fortuny's party
emerged as the recognized party but adopted some of Gutierrez' view-
points by changing the party name to the Partido Guatemalteco del
Trabajo (PGT). It is an open question, however, whether this com-
promise will survive over the years the shifting tactics and fortunes
of international communism. Fortuny and his associates now make
up the Secretariat of the PGT while Gutierrez and his are on a lower
echelon. Meanwhile, Solorzano and others of the original Communist
movement appear to be out of the PGT altogether and apparently
continue to adhere to the older doctrine of promoting Communist
doctrines from within the administration groups. At present there
is no shred of evidence that any of these groups are pursuing a Trot-
sky ist or other "deviationist" policy, and there are evident advantages
to the Soviet international Conununist movement to have alternatives
in choosing factions in Guatemala. However, it is a matter for specu-
lation whether the party could remain organizationally unshaken un-
der the impact of a major change in the Guatemahin domestic situation
or a change in Soviet policy.

The fifth weakness of the PGT is the degree to which Guatemala's
political climate has changed since 1944 and especially since 1951
when the Arbenz administration came into power. The emergence
of a professed Communist Party has caused a polarization of political
opinion with most of the formerly economically powerful interests
arrayed against the party and the Government which aids it. The
balance of opinion in the San Carlos University has swerved from
its 1944 high of woolly leftism to a point where it is a stronghold
of anti-Communist and anti-CJovernment sentiment despite its vo-

84

ciferous pro-Communist minority. The professional and business
classes, which welcomed the end of the period of dictatorship in 1944
and acquiesced in its early phases of the revolution's social reforms,
have balked at what they regard as the extremist currents that have
taken over the revolution. The Eoman Catholic Church in Guatemala
has always opposed communism and its anti-Communist message has
gained wider acceptance as Communist advances have impressed
themselves on the public mind. The Archbishop of Guatemala, Msgr.
Mariano Rossell Arellano, in his 1954 Easter Pastoral Letter called
for a "National Crusade Against Communism." The independent
press, which has the majority of Guatemalan newspaper circulation, is
solidly against the PGT and has made communism the central domes-
tic political issue in Guatemala. The PGT thus now faces a con-
siderable array of hostile forces, a development it recognizes under
the terminology of the "sharpening of the class struggle."

The final weakness of the PGT is that it is a distant satellite of the
Soviet Communist center and derives its energy and cohesion from it.
In the last analysis, if international developments were to lead to an
internal explosion in the U. S. S. R. or a material weakening of the
strength it transmits abroad, the PGT would be in danger of losing
its cohesion, though the fragments of frustration, anticapitalism, and
perverted nationalism which form it might later reform as the satellite
of another virulent "ism."

3. Strength of the PGT\ Position: WTiile the weaknesses of the
PGT are largely theoretical and dangerous to the party only if certain
hypothetical events occur, its strengths are concrete and of immediate
value, with the result that in the balance the indications for the next
few years are that the PGT will advance in its program if there is no
external or accidental interference in its progress.

The first asset of the PGT is that it has the initiative in Guatemalan
political life and has already developed a momentum which would be
difficult to stop. The Arbenz administration has committed itself
to a "reform" program, the ideological content and rationalization
of which has been largely the result of the PGT's manipulation of the
"revolutionary movement." Thus while the administration retains
the mechanical means to suppress communism (e. g. by withdrawing
support or using the army) it could scarcely do so without emascu-
lating the program to which it has dedicated itself. Arbenz himself
said as much in his 1954 Message to Congress, when he said isolation
of the "democratic and progressive forces" (i. e. the Communists)
would be equivalent to the suicide of Guatemala's revolutionary
movement.

The second asset of the PGT is the virtually total lack of organized
opposition. Like the administration parties, the opposition groups

85

merely react to the PGT initiative and have no positive program of
their own. Moreover, the propertied classes from which the opposi-
tion would naturally draw its strength are prisoners of their property :
They do not, it appears, dare invite retaliation hy fully supporting
opposition organizations unless there is a prospect of immediate,
safety-giving success. This has been mainly responsible for the phe-
nomenon that the Partido Uni-ftcacion Anticomunista (PITA) and the
Comite Civico Nacional (CCN), the main anti-Communist groups,
have not risen to match the growing PGT strength but, on the con-
trary, have become poorer and weaker with every PGT advance.
This timidity on the part of the potential opposition has been accen-
tuated by the strong and often publicly expressed attitude of the
administration equating "Anti-Communism" to subversion of the
constitutional order, and by the administration's intimidation tactics
such as arresting anti-Communist leaders on charges of implication in
anti-Government disturbances. Moreover, the independent press
which is the mainstay in keeping anticommunism alive itself is
prevented from being fully effective by fear of Government reprisals
as well as from a lack of full comprehension of Communist tactics.

In 1953-54 the authorities and the PGT have cooperated in a con-
certed drive against focal points of opposition. After an uprising at
the provincial town of Salama on March 29, 1953, leading figures in the
PUA, CCN", and the students' anti-Communist groups CEUA were
jailed or driven into exile. More anti-Communist leaders were ar-
rested or went into exile after the Government alleged in January
1954 that it had uncovered an "international plot" against it. In the
first months of 1954, the principal anti-Communist radio stations were
raided by masked hoodlimis without police interference, or their
owners or managers were intimidated by the authorities.

Finally a major asset of the PGT is that the working out of the
existing Government programs (which it had a large share in shap-
ing) is virtually certain to lead to an increase in Communist strength.
The agrarian reform, for instance, has not only cut into the economic
strength of the landowning class but brought on a decline in invest-
ment weakening the business classes. In rural areas it is educating
farm workers to the attitude that they must cooperate with the Com-
munist and Communist-influenced agrarian authorities, and at the
same time it is paradoxically uprooting tradition-bound Indian labor-
ers who do not favor the new reform but who give indications of
becoming a drifting, discontented group susceptible to manipulation
by extremists. Likewise, the attack on foreign companies on extreme
nationalist grounds stimulated by the PGT serves a double purpose,
for at once it weakens the links with the United States and weakens
those concepts of property, equity, and law which serve to block the
way to the eventual Communist triumph.

86

4

B. GUATEMALAN COMMUNISM AND LATIN AMERICA

The present and possible future successes of communism in Guate-
mala have a wider significance than the degree to which the PGT
fulfills its Guatemalan program. Foremost among the long-range
benefits of the PGT's experience to international communism is that
under the shelter of the Guatemalan Government, a Communist
Party has been able to perfect techniques for operation in the Latin
American environment, and especially for exploiting the revolution-
ary-nationalistic currents which are now near the surface throughout
most of the area. Guatemala differs in degree but not in kind from
most of her sister Latin American Eepublics and, under propitious
circumstances, international communism may be expected to adapt
the lessons learned in Guatemala to other areas. If Moscow estab-
lishes that a Communist-controlled state can be maintained without
the direct or threatened protection of the Red army, it will have
opened new doors to expansion and conquest.

There is already evidence that Guatemala is being used as a base
for the spread of communism, especially to the rest of Central Amer-
ica. The country has become a focal point of communism for neigh-
boring areas. Miguel Marmol and Virgilio Guerra, the Salvadoran
Communists, are at the moment active in the Guatemalan labor move-
ment ; Abel Cuenca, a Communist or at least a thoroughgoing sympa-
thizer, is active in political life; and 14 young Salvadorans impris-
oned in their country in September 1952 for Communist activities
(though stating they are not Communists) arrived in Guatemala in
August 1953 under the leadership of Manuel Otilio Hasbun, ex-presi-
dent of the General Association of Salvadoran University Students.
In May 1954 Obdulio Barthe, the Paraguayan Communist leader,
was accepted as a refugee in Guatemala. The Asociacion Derrvocrd-
tica Salvadorena, an exile organization, has its meetings announced
in the PGT's Trihuna Popular.

The Nicaraguan Communist and pro-Communist group is headed
by Alejandro Bermudez Alegria, Edelberto Torres, Sr., and Armando
Flores Amador (who sometimes signs as Armando Amador). This
group is involved in the Movimiento de Nicaraguenses Partidarios de
la Democrada, an anti-Somoza organization headed by Leonte Pallais
Tiffer.

Leftist Honduran exiles have organized a Guatemalan affiliate of
the Partido Democrdtico Revolucionario Hondwreno which sends out
Communist-line manifestos to the press under the signature, as of
August 30, 1953, R. Amaya Amador, Secretary General.

Several Dominican exiles have been involved in a local Comite de
Exilados Dominicanos, some members of whom, including a Felix
Docoudray, are also members of the pro-Connmiuist Partido Socialista
Pofular Dowinicano wliich pu))liHhes, since August 19, 1953, a monthly
magazine Orientacidn in Giuiteniala City.

87

The local Communists have made a particularly successful attempt
to split the local group of Peruvian Aprista exiles. The main body,
Oomite Aprista en Guatemala, formerly under Dr. Andres Townsend
Escurra, remained faithful to an anti-Communist as well as an "anti-
imperialist" line, but a splinter group named the Movimiento Popular
de la LiheraciSn Nacional, under Eduardo Jibaja, has cooperated with
the Communists. There seems little doubt that the Guatemalan
authorities favor the latter as they helped it to stage its 1953 observance
of Peru's Independence Day on July 28 and Jibaja is employed by
the Government newspaper Diario de Centra America.

The local leftists have also cultivated the local exile branch of the
Venezuelan Partido Accion Democrdtica but without apparent success
as yet in subverting it to Communist uses. The leader is Dr. Luis M.
Peiialver, ex-vice rector of the Central University of Venezuela.

More directly it is known that officials of the PGT, including Ber-
nardo Alvarado Monzon and Alfredo Guerra Borges, have attended
meetings of Communist-front parties in the other Central American
Republics and are in correspondence with the leaders of those parties,
presumably serving as advisers in a manner similar to that in which
more experienced Communists in earlier times aided the growth of
the Communist Party in Guatemala.

The variety of Communist and leftist political exiles in Guatemala
and the links between the PGT and Communist-front parties in other
countries thus provide the skeleton of a system by which the Guate-
malan experiment could be exported to other Latin American
countries.

Ah-eady there are indications that Guatemala is being used as a
base against her neighbors. The attempt to assassinate President
Somoza of Nicaragua in April 1954 involved among the plotters Jorge
Rivas Montes, Francisco Ibarra Mayorga, and other revolutionaries
who until shortly before the plot had enjoyed the protection of the
Guatemalan Government or had traveled in and out of Guatemala.
The disturbances which broke out in May 1954 in Honduras, result-
ing in a well-organized strike, were preceded by the assignment in
March and April of special Guatemalan consuls in what were to
become the strike areas, and 4 days before the disturbance broke
out a Guatemalan military airplane landed in the area without
clearance.

The Guatemalan potential to move directly or indirectly against
its anti-Communist Central American neighbors was materially en-
hanced on May 15, 1954, by the arrival in Puerto Barrios of the
Swedish ship Alfhem carrying 2,000 tons of arms loaded in the port
of Stettin in Polish-administered territory.

88

ANNEX

THE GROWTH OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNISM IN
GUATEMALA

i

June 1944

July— September J 944

October 20, 1944

March IS, 1945

August 1945

January 1946

September 28, 1947

A Brief Chronology

Provisional Govermnent headed by Gen.
Federico Ponce Vaides established,
after student demonstration over-
throws government of General Ubico.

First revolutionary parties and labor
unions formed ; Ponce attempts return
to authoritarian government.

The Guatemalan revolution: students
and young army officers, including
Capt. Jacobo Arbenz, overturn Ponce
government.

New Guatemalan Constitution goes into
effect ; forbids formation and function-
ing of political organizations of inter-
national or foreign character.

Confederacion de Trdbajadores de Guate-
mala (CTG) founded as first national
labor organization; international Com-
munists among its advisers. Shortly
thereafter Escuela Claridad, Commu-
nist training school within the con-
federation, is established.

Government closes down Escuela Clari-
dad; Communists continue indoctrina-
tion through study groups.

First Communist Party founded secretly
under name of Vanguardia Demo-
crdtica; Jose Manuel Fortuny and
other leaders continue to represent
themselves to public as non-Commu-
nist political and labor leaders.

89

December 1947

December 21, 1947

1948

April 1949

July 18, 1949

August 1949

September 28, 1949

May 25, 1950

Aliama F emenina Guatemalteca (AFG)
Communist-front women's organiza-
tion founded. Later affiliated with
World Federation of Democratic
Women, international Communist
group.

Alianza de la Juventud Democrdtica de
Guatemala (AJDG) Communist- front
youth organization founded. Later
affiliated with World Federation of
Democratic Youth, international Com-
munist organization.

Jose Manuel Fortuny elected Secretary
General of secret Communist Party,
Vanguardia Democrdtica.

Fortuny and Victor Manuel Gutierrez,
Secretary General of CTG, attend
First World Congress of Partisans of
Peace in Paris; Fortuny goes on to
travel behind tlie Iron Curtain.

Col. Francisco Xavier Arana, mod-
erate Chief of the Armed Forces, as-
sassinated near Lake Ajnatitliln; 1st
Eegiment revolts but is suppressed by
Government, led by Minister of De-
fense, Lieutenant Colonel Arbenz ; as-
sassins never brought to justice.

Fortuny and Alfonso Solorzano, back
from Iron Curtain trip, participate in
foundation of Guatemalan National
Peace Committee, Fortuny presiding
over meeting.

Secret Communist Party, Vanguardia
Democrdtica, holds First Party Con-
gress ; reelects Fortuny Secretary Gen-
eral; adopts name Partido Com,unista
de Guatemala (PCG) but remains un-
derground.

Fortuny and ten others formally resign
from Partido Accion Revolucionaria
(PAR) in which they had remained
de^sjnte iii^ years' moiubership in secret
Comnmnist Party.

90

June 21, 1950

June 1950

Summer 1950

March 15, 1951
March 23, 1951

April 4, 1951
May 1951

June 21, 1951

Julys, 1951
October 12-14, 1951

October 25, 1951-
January 9, J 952

January 72, 1952

Fortuny founds newspaper Octuhre
whose subheading is "For a Great
Communist Party; Vanguard of the
Workers, and the Peasants and the
People"; paper carries hammer and
sickle emblem.

Gutierrez founds Partido Revolucionaria
Ohrero de Guatemala (PKOG), an
openly Communist-line party.

Fortuny becomes campaign manager for
Lieutenant Colonel Arbenz in presi-
dential elections.

Arbenz inaugurated President.

Alfonso Solorzano, leading Communist
pei-sonnlity, appointed manager of
Guatemalan Institute of Social Secu-
rity {Instituto Guatemalteco deSeguH-
dad Social) (IGSS).

Fortuny signs public manifesto for first
time as "Secretary General of Partido
Gomunista de Guatemala.''''

Louis Saillant, Secretary General of in-
ternational Communist organization
WFTU, and Vicente Lombardo Tole-
dano go to Guatemala; advise unify-
ing the Guatemalan labor movement.

PCG holds first public meeting in theater
provided at Government orders ; high
Government officials attend.

Gutierrez states in press interview he is
a Communist.

Gonfederacidn General de Trabajadores
de Guatemala (CGTG) founded as
single national labor federation; Gu-
tierrez elected Secretary General; Ar-
benz sends congratulations to the
CGTG founding congress.

Gutierrez attends WFTU Congress in
Berlin; visits Moscow.

Gutierrez, back in Guatemala, announces
dissolution of his party, PKOG; states
ho will join Fortuny's PCG; and ad-
vises followers to do likewise.

91

m

January 25, J 952

fAay 70-June 17, 1952

Summer 1952

December 11, 1952

December 19, 1952
1952-1953

January 16-18, 1953

February 19, 1953
March 1,1953

Cominform Bucharest newspaper For a
Lasting Peace, For a People's Democ-
racy publishes articles on PCG, in ef-
fect publicly announcing recognition
of Fortuny's party as authorized agent
of international communism in Guate-
mala.

Agrarian Reform Law proposed by
President Arbenz is steered through
Congress by Special Committee on
Agrarian Reform, whose president is
Gutierrez,

PCG leaders participate unofficially in
meetings of the administration politi-
cal coalition.

PCG holds Second Party Congress, re-
elects Fortuny as Secretary General;
changes name to Partido Guatemal-
teco del Trahajo (PGT).

PGT registered as legal political party.

Six members of Political Committee of
Communist Party (PCG later PGT)
visit U. S. S. R. : Jose Manuel Fortuny,
Mario Silva Jonama, Jose Luis Ramos,
Jose Alberto Cardoza, Victor Manuel
Gutierrez, and Virgilio Guerra.

Communist PGT runs in congressional
elections as part of "Democratic Elec-
toral Front," the coalition of all par-
ties supporting President Arbenz.

Communist PGT opens "Jaoobo San-
chez" training school for cadres.

President Arbenz in annual message to
Congress, obviously alluding to re-
quests Communist Party be prohibited
from functioning under article 32 of
Constitution, states Government will
assure freedom for "all, absolutely all"
political beliefs; Communists cheer
this passage as assurance of support
of Conmumist Party.

March 12, 1953

1953

April 4, 1953

June 22-28, 1953

August 8-9, 1953

August 15, 1953

November 5, 1953-
January 12, 1954

November 10, 1953

December 79, 1953

92

i

Guatemalan Congress observes minute
of silence in tribute to Stalin, at time
of his death.

"National Democratic Front" succeeds
"Democratic Electoral Front" and
CGTG and CNCG are later added to
political parties comprising Front;
leaders, including 4 Communists and
4 or more fellow-travelers, meet regu-
larly with President Arbenz.

Guatemala withdraws from Organiza-
tion of Central American States when
it became clear that the agenda of the
first meeting would include an item on
"resisting the subversive action of
international communism."

Guatemalan leftist organizations ob-
serve week of "Solidarity with People
of Korea," a principal feature of which
is a declaration by 19 deputies, includ-
ing the president and vice president
of the Congress, condemning "impe-
rialist aggression" against North Ko-
rea and charging bacteriological war-
fare used in Korea.

Party organizational conference held;
claims party membership doubled
since December 1952.

Communist PGT establishes daily news-
paper, Trihuna Popular,

Jose Manuel Fortuny, Secretary General
of Communist Party, visits Moscow.

Guatemala is only state to vote against
inclusion of the item "Intervention of
International Communism in the
American Republics" on the agenda
of the Tenth Inter-American Con-
ference.

Communist-controlled Confeder acton
General de Trabajadorea de Guate-
mala (C(iTG) sponsors "Day of Soli-
darity with (ho Viet iianicse, People."

93

December 19S3-Apnl 1954

January 1954

January 72, 7954
January 18, 1954

January 29, 1954
February 1954

March 1-28, 1954

Communist leader Carlos Manuel
Pellecer instigates peasants in Depart-
ment of Escuintla and elsewhere to
seize private lands ; violence ensues.
Anti-Communist leaders, accused of
plotting, arrested or flee country ; fol-
lowed by intimidation of anti-Com-
munist radio stations.
Fortuny returns from Moscow.
Major Martinez, Chief of National
Agrarian Department and former Sec-
retary to President Arbenz, leaves
Guatemala suddenly, purportedly for
Switzerland.
Minister of Czechoslovakia presents cre-
dentials to President of Guatemala.
"National Democratic Front" meets with
President Arbenz and Foreign Min-
ister Toriello to decide tactics at
Caracas Conference; 4 of Front's 10
representatives present are avowed
Communists, at least 4 others fellow-
travelers.
Guatemala sends delegation headed by
Toriello to Caracas Conference; is
only Government to vote against anti-
Communist resolution; abstains on
Panamanian resolution on racial dis-
crimination on grounds it used phrase
"as one means of combatting interna-
tional Communism"; states it con-
siders without validity the anti-
Communist resolutions adopted at the
Bogota Conference of 1948 and the
Washington Foreign Ministers Meet-
ing of 1951 ; absents itself from Con-
ference tribute to United Nations war
dead.

94

March 7, 7954

March 25, 1954

March-April 1954
April 10-18, 1954

April 18-May 15, 7954

April 25, 1954

May 5, 1954

May 15,1954

President Arbenz, in annual message to
Congress, indicates clear support of
Communists ; identifies them as "demo-
cratic" and "progressive" forces; says
that to eliminate them would be equiv-
alent to suicide of revolutionary
movement.

Guatemala withdraws from Pan Ameri-
can Union its instrument of ratifica-
tion of the Inter- American Treaty of
Reciprocal Assistance (Rio Treaty),
which it had submitted to the Secre-
tariat pending result of consultation on
Guatemalan reservation.

Guatemala appoints special consuls to
posts in northwest Honduras.

M/V Alfhem loads 2,000 tons of arras
and munitions at Stettin, a port ad-
ministered by Communist Polish Gov-
ernment; arms are falsely manifested
as machinery, hardware, chemical and
optical glass, etc.

Alfhem on voyage to Guatemala fre-
quently changing destination en route ;
first ordered Dakar; orders changed
successively to Curagao, Puerto Cortes,
Honduras, and finally Puerto Barrios,
Guatemala.

Political Committee of PGT attacks Rio
Treaty, stating that it cannot result in
any good for Guatemala.

Strikes break out in northwest Honduras
in region where Guatemalan consuls
assigned in March-April; Honduran
Government declares three consuls
personae non gratae; accuses Com-
munist-dominated Guatemalan labor
organizations of supporting strike.

Alfhem arrives at Puerto Barrios, Guate-
mala; begins unloading arms cargo
under guard.

95

Junes, 1954

President Arbenz, with approval of
Congress, summoned in night, sus-
pends constitutional guarantees; a
type of reign of terror begins; hun-
dred reported arrested, including
humble farmers, on suspicion of anti-
communism; bullet-riddled or beaten
bodies of persons arrested by police
found on streets and highways ; houses
searched; censorship imposed.

^f%,'